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Japan Finds Radioactive Water Leaking into Ocean

   VOA News  April 02, 2011
   Workers collect data in the control room for Unit 1 and Unit 2 at the
   tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant

Photo: AP Photo/Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency

   In this photo released by Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Tokyo
   Electric Power Co. workers collect data in the control room for Unit 1
   and Unit 2 at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power
   plant, March 23, 2011.

   Nuclear safety officials say a newly-discovered crack in Japan's
   damaged nuclear plant could be the source of radioactive water that is
   leaking into the Pacific Ocean.
   Nuclear safety spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama told reporters Saturday the
   water could be leaking from a crack in a maintenance pit on the edge of
   the Fukushima nuclear site.
   Nishiyama said the Tokyo Electric Power Company is planning to pour
   concrete into the pit to seal the crack.
   Earlier in the day, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan visited the
   tsunami-devastated region, meeting workers in the nuclear exclusion
   zone and talking to residents made homeless by the March 11 disaster.
   At a school-turned evacuation center, Mr. Kan told evacuees that the
   government would support them until the end of the recovery process.
   The Japanese leader also visited a village just inside the exclusion
   zone which is serving as the headquarters for emergency teams trying to
   cool the six reactors at the plant.
   United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday that the
   situation at the plant "remains very serious."
   The U.N.'s atomic energy agency has warned that high concentrations of
   radioactive particles have spread outside the 30-kilometer exclusion
   zone around the nuclear plant. The agency reported Friday that in one
   village, Iitate, some 40 kilometers from the plant, radiation levels
   are decreasing after spiking at levels substantially above that at
   which they recommend evacuations.
   Japan's chief government spokesman Yukio Edano confirmed reports that
   the groundwater around the plant is contaminated with radiation many
   times higher than normal, and that testing on cattle had turned up a
   low-level sample of radioactive-contaminated beef.
   Thousands of Japanese and American military personnel joined together
   Friday in a final three-day sweep to search for those still missing
   from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. More than 11,000 people are
   confirmed dead, with more than 16,500 still missing. But the search
   teams will stay out of the evacuation zone around the damaged plant.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.

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