This may be a bad time to ask whether Japan ought to have a nuclear power industry. Japanese engineers were on Sunday desperately struggling to contain what the government was calling “a partial meltdown” at an earthquake-stricken nuclear power station, one of more than 50 crammed on to Japan’s geologically unstable landmass.

Roughly one in 10 of the world’s nuclear power stations are in Japan, by far the most earthquake-prone nation in the world. Events since Friday’s devastating quake and tsunami have to make you wonder whether that is such a good idea.

Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the company that operates the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, suspects that radioactive fuel rods may have partly melted in two reactors. Engineers were forced to vent steam from the vessels to release pressure and avoid the sort of explosion that ripped through one of the plants’ reactor buildings on Friday. Yukio Edano, Japan’s chief government spokesman, said radiation had been released, though the amounts recorded did not suggest a major health threat.