Radioactive Water Leaking Into Ocean From Japanese Nuclear Plant

The leak, found at a maintenance pit near the plants No. 2 reactor, is a fresh reminder of the dangerous consequences of the strategy to icy the reactors and spent fuel storage pools by pumping hundreds of tons of water a day in to them. While much of that water has evaporated, a lovely portion has also turned in to runoff.

TOKYO - Highly radioactive water is leaking directly in to the sea from a damaged pit near a crippled reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, safety officials said Saturday, the latest setback in the increasingly messy bid to regain control of the reactors. Although higher levels of radiation have been detected in the ocean waters near the plant, the breach discovered Saturday is the first identified direct leak of such high levels of radiation in to the sea.

Workers are racing to drain the pools but have struggled to figure out how to store the irradiated water. On Saturday, contaminated water was transferred in to a barge to free up space in other tanks on land. A second barge also arrived.

Two workers at the plant, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company, have been injured by stepping in to pools of contaminated water inside one reactor complex, while above-normal levels of radiation have been detected in seawater near the plant.

The leaks could even be facts that the reactor pressure vessel, which holds the nuclear fuel rods, is unable to hold all of the water being poured in to it, Mr. Sato said.

But with a lot contaminated water injuring workers and escaping in to the ocean, some specialists in the nuclear industry are now beginning to query the so-called "feed-and-bleed" strategy of pumping the reactors with water. The more water they add, the more issues they are generating, said Satoshi Sato, a consultant to the nuclear energy industry and a former engineer with General Electric. Its a matter of time before the leaks in to the ocean grow. Tokyo Electric said that it had not identified the original source of the contaminated water. Some specialists say it could be from excess runoff from the spent fuel pools or a broken pipe or valve connected to the reactor.

It is crucial to keep cooling the fuel rods, but on the other hand, these leaks are dangerous, Mr. Iguchi said. They can't let the plant keep leaking high amounts of radiation for much longer, they said.

Tetsuo Iguchi, a professor in the department of quantum engineering at Nagoya University, said that the leak discovered Saturday raised fears that the contaminated water may be seeping out through lots of more undiscovered sources. They said unless workers could quickly cease the leaking, Tokyo Electric could be forced to re-evaluate the feed-and-bleed strategy.

The space directly above the water leaking in to the sea had a radiation reading of over 1,000 millisieverts an hour, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. Tests of the water within the pit later showed the presence of 1 million becquerels per liter of iodine 131, a dangerous radioactive substance. However iodine 131 has a comparatively short half life of about seven days.

Plant workers discovered a crack about seven inches wide in the maintenance pit, which lies between the No. 2 Reactor and the sea and holds cables used to power seawater pumps, Japan's nuclear regulator said.

Mr. Nishiyama also said that above-normal levels of radioactive materials were detected about 25 miles south of the Fukushima plant, much further than had historicallyin the past been reported.

The pit was filled with two to seven inches of contaminated water, said the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric. Highly radioactive water has also been discovered in the reactor's turbine building historicallyin the past week.

Workers had began to try to fill the crack with concrete, Mr. Nishiyama said late Saturday.

Tetsuo Iguchi, a professor in the department of quantum engineering at Nagoya University, said that the leak discovered Saturday raised fears that the contaminated water may be seeping out through lots of more undiscovered routes. It is crucial to keep cooling the fuel rods, but on the other hand, these leaks are dangerous, Mr. Iguchi said. They can't let the plant keep leaking high amounts of radiation for much longer,they said. Workers will try to patch up the crack with concrete, the company said.

The crisis at the nuclear plant has overshadowed the recovery work under way in Japan since the 9.0 magnitude shake and tsunami hit the northeastern coast on March 11. The country's National Police Agency said the official death toll from the catastrophe had surpassed 11,800, while over 15,500 were listed as missing.

Saturday's announcement of a leak came a day after the U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Reactor No. 2 at the Fukushima plant had suffered a 33 percent meltdown. They cautioned that the figures were more of a calculation. Mr. Chu also said that roughly 70 percent of the core of Reactor No. 1 had suffered extreme destroy.

We'll be together with you to the finish, Mr. Kan said in the work of a cease in Rikuzentakata, a town of about 20,000 people that was destroyed on March 11. Everybody, try your best.

Earlier Saturday, Prime Minister Naoto Kan made his first visit to the region since last months catastrophe, where they promised to do everything feasible to help. His tour came a day after asking Japan to start focusing on the long hard task of rebuilding the tsunami-shattered prefectures.

Wearing a blue work jacket, Kan also visited with refugees stranded in an simple school and then visited a sports complex about 20 miles south of the disabled nuclear plant. The training facility has been turned in to a staging area for firefighters, Self-Defense Forces and workers from Tokyo Electric.