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I'm not sure, but in the Wikipedia article I found that the electricity problems in the Fukushima plant lasted from March 11 to March 22 at least (the problems continued for a longer time). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disas...

So 72 hours = 3 days would be not enough alone, but I also don't know how the other actions had made the situation better or worse.

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The amount of cooling needed is not constant over time (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decay_heat), which is one of the reasons passive cooling systems are designed for days rather than weeks.

The first seconds/minutes are the most critical and after 72 hours the residual heat is down to a level which can be much more easily handled.

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