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Map of nuclear power reactors in the USA (image from the U.S.

A fire in an electrical switch room on Tuesday briefly knocked out cooling for a pool holding spent nuclear fuel at the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant outside Omaha, Neb., plant officials said. The safety of deep pools used to store used radioactive fuel at nuclear plants has been an issue since the accident at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant in March.

There are multiple nuclear reactors teetering on fault lines around the country, and most of them are surrounded by pools of water filled with still-very-radioactive spent fuel. The radioactivity from the now-exposed spent fuel at Fukushima is part of the reason why the situation there is so dire.

The partial meltdown of nuclear fuel at the Fukushima nuclear power plant has created a crisis in Japan. Nature Video provides a brief summary of events at the plant, and what lies ahead for the damaged reactors