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Rupert Wingfield-Hayes says the concern is about the pumps that drive the cooling system
Cooling systems to spent fuel ponds at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant have been partially restored after a power failure, operator Tepco says.
The outage hit ponds at reactors 1, 3 and 4, although cooling to the reactors themselves was not affected.
Cooling had been restored to the pool at reactor 1, with cooling at the reactor 3 and 4 pools expected to resume on Tuesday evening, Tepco said.
It is assessing the cause of the outage, which began on Monday evening.
The "highest priority" was being placed on restoring the cooling system to the spent fuel pool at reactor 4, Kyodo news agency quoted Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) spokesperson Masayuki Ono as saying.
The hottest of the ponds, its temperature stood at 30.5C on Tuesday morning, Tepco said, well below the safety limit of 65C. It estimated it would take four days to reach that limit.
The two ponds in Units 1 and 3 had lower temperatures and would have taken even longer to reach the safety limit, Tepco said.
The cooling system at a fourth, common pool was to be restarted at 8:00am local time (0:00 GMT) on Wednesday, Tepco said.
'Back-up system'The ponds store spent fuel from the nuclear reactors. They cool the fuel - which generates intense heat - and provide shielding from radiation. The spent fuel remains in the ponds for a year or more.
There is no immediate threat of a radiation release. But if fresh cooling water is not restored within the deadlines, it is possible that the water in the ponds could start to boil.
That would lead to a loss of water and eventually to the exposure of the spent fuel rods to air. If that were to happen, reports the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo, it would be a very serious situation and could lead to a release of radiation.
Tepco said it was trying to repair a broken switchboard that could have caused the power problem, AP news agency reports.
The government said Tepco was tackling the problem.
"As they are planning to take all possible substitute measures for cooling, we do not need to worry at all," government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said.
The Fukushima nuclear plant was crippled by the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Waves knocked out cooling systems to the reactors, leading to meltdowns at three of them.
Engineers have since stabilised the plant but years of work lie ahead to fully contain the disaster and tackle its effects.
Tens of thousands of evacuees remain unable to return home.
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