Not good news!

"Japan's government spokesman says the metal container sheltering a nuclear reactor was not affected by an explosion that destroyed the building it's in."

I'm unsure what this statement means beyond an attempt to reassure the public. The fuel rods are within a containment vessel and here in the States our nuclear plants have what's called a containment dome, a final barrier of defense if there were a meltdown (and no one really knows if it would work or not in that event). It's unclear to me if there is a secondary containment dome for this reactor in Japan or whether that was supposed to be the building whose walls have just been blown out.

But in either event no cooling system (pipes, pumps, valves) would have survived that explosion and it's just a matter of hours before there is a complete meltdown.

Charley Noble