Nuclear technicians have resumed pumping radioactive water from Japan's crippled nuclear plant into the nearby ocean, where radioactivity levels several million times the allowable limit are now being reported.
Officials with the Tokyo Electric Power Company said 2,800 tons of radioactive water had been pumped into the sea from a temporary storage facitily by 9 a.m. Tuesday. The company plans to empty 10,000 tons of water from the tank to make room for water that is much more highly contaminated and preventing repair work at the plant.
Another 1,500 tons is being pumped from two nearby buildings.
Japan's NHK Television meanwhile reported that radioactive iodine levels were measured Saturday in the sea near the Fukushima plant's Number 2 reactor at levels more than 7 milliion times the legal limit. Another measurement on Monday morning found levels at 5 million times the legal limit.
Both measurements were taken before the deliberate pumping began. The intense contamination is believed to be coming from a maintenance pit next to the number two reactor, which has filled with water after weeks of efforts to keep nuclear fuel rods in the plant's six units from overheating. Repeated efforts to seal the leak have failed.
In the latest effort Tuesday, plant workers were planning to inject liquid glass into the soil around the pit. They also are discussing a plan block the contamination from spreading in the sea by surrounding it with curtain-like screens.
Concern about TEPCO's troubles drove share prices in the power utility below an all-time low recorded in 1951.
The water being deliberately pumped into the sea is at about 500 times the legal limit, but that is far less radioactive than the water that will replace it in the storage tank, mostly from the basement of the number two unit. The government said it is stepping up the inspection of fisheries products to reassure the public.
The highly contaiminated water in the basements of several of the plant's six reactors is preventing workers from replacing and repairing the pumps that run the plant's critical cooling systems. Officials said late Monday that they have asked Russia to send a special radiation treatment ship to help dispose of some of the water.
The Russian vessel treats radioactive liquids as part of the decommissioning of nuclear submarines. It was built in a joint venture between Russia and Japan.
The top U.N. atomic energy official said Monday the crisis at the Fukushima plant has led to global concerns about the safety of nuclear energy. Yukiya Amano said maintaining robust safety standards and transparency are crucial to restoring confidence in the sector.
General Electric's Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt, whose company designed parts of the Fukushima plant, said Monday that 1,000 engineers from GE and its partner, Hitachi, are working to help mitigate the disaster.
The nuclear crisis has distracted attention from the enormous job of helping survivors from the March 11 quake and tsunami, which washed away whole towns and villages along Japan's northeastern coast. More than 27,500 people are dead or missing, while almost 160,000 people are living in temporary shelters.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.