Japan's nuclear watchdog on Wednesday gave a green light to a plan by Tokyo Electric Power Co. to remove fuel rods stored in a pool at the unit 4 building at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a process that will secure the fuel and help prevent any new massive radiation release at the facility.

Tepco will remove about 1,300 spent fuel rods and 200 new fuel rods stored in a pool in the reactor building, moving them in batches to a more secure storage facility on the site. The procedure, in which the 4 meter-long rods will be pulled out of the pool at a time, is considered unprecedented in its scale.

Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, has expressed concerns about the fragile state of the nuclear fuel left in three reactors and the spent fuel pool in the No.4 building. If improperly handled or destabilized by another major earthquake at the site, the fuel could discharge large amounts of radiation into the environment.

Unlike Reactors No. 1-3, unit 4 was not operating at the time of the March 2011 accident. All of the fuel at the No.4 reactor was stored in the pool that was meant to keep it cool enough while it naturally decays to the point where it poses no threat of restarting its nuclear reaction.

Tepco hopes to begin the work by mid-November following the construction of a new crane and removal system after the original equipment was destroyed in an explosion at the unit soon after the original accident.