It's not. It's a steaming pile of horseshit. Their DG's, like ours, have HUGE (think tens of THOUSANDS of gallons) fuel tanks, and on top of that they have "day tanks" which are required to be full at all times. None of this, "Oh, I forgot" crap, and certainly not after running for only an hour.
And CBS is about half a step below Weekly World News for credibility, and about six steps below in entertainment value.
Don't go off on CBS just yet.....although they do deserve it sometimes. The wife watches TV while she gets ready for work and I pay about as much attention to what's on as...well...a fly on the wall. It could have been ABC/NBC or some other channel.
Not questioning you but where did you get that it only ran for one hour? Is there a story/article/link out there about that?
Did the tsunami go that far inland? Did they maybe get water in the fuel?
It'll be months before we find out what really went on in those plants.
Lastly...My BIL, married to the good sister, was a Senior Analytical Design Engineer on the nuclear side of Duke Energy. He did work on most of Dukes nuclear plants and was on a start-up/certification team that worked under contract for the government...haven't talked to him lately so I might just call him up today and ask about his new knees and his thoughts on this subject.