High wind halts dismantling of Fukushima nuclear plant's water tanks

Gusty winds prevented the operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant from starting to dismantle treated water tanks on Thursday, a crucial step towards decommissioning the entire facility. 

The step was seen as a milestone in TEPCO's decades-long project to decommission the stricken plant in northern Japan, which went into meltdown after it was hit by a catastrophic tsunami in 2011. Officials were to have started the process on Thursday to get rid of some of the tanks to clear space needed to store nuclear debris to be extracted from the plant's reactors. 

After removing the tanks, the utility plans to build facilities to store highly dangerous molten fuel debris to be extracted from inside the reactors.