标题: Japan Nuclear Plant Releases Contaiminated Water Into Ocean [打印本页] 作者: ilovebeagle 时间: 2011-4-4 20:57 标题: Japan Nuclear Plant Releases Contaiminated Water Into Ocean Operators of Japan's crippled power plant say they have begun releasing more than 11,000 tons of contaminated water into the ocean to make room in their storage tanks for water that is even more radioactive.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano announced the plan at a press conference earlier Monday, saying the step is “unavoidable” to ensure safety. He said the water to be released is much less radioactive than the water that will be pumped into the storage tanks, mainly from the Fukushima plant's number two reactor.
Officials have already recorded levels of radioactivity thousands of times higher than the legal limit in waters near the Fukushima plant, where cooling systems for all six reactors were knocked out by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11. Repair crews identified the probable cause on Saturday as a crack in a storage pit near the number two reactor.
Repeated efforts since Saturday have failed to stop the leak. The Tokyo Electric Power Company tried Sunday to seal the crack in the pit with a mixture of sawdust, shredded newspaper and a plastic polymer that is supposed to expand to several times is size when it hardens. However there was no noticeable reduction in the radiation level in the ocean.
On Monday, the power company began pouring a colored liquid into the water in hopes of tracing the leak and officials said they will try again to cut off the flow once they determine its path.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Sunday that officials have succeeded in restoring outside power to the pumps that drive cooling systems at the plant's three most troubled reactors. But government officials said it may be months before the plant is brought fully under control and the sources of radiation leaks are completely eliminated.
Edano said officials are equally concerned with airborne radiation, which has turned up in milk and vegetables produced near the plant and in tap water as far away as Tokyo, 220 kilometers to the south. He said the government will not relax the standards under which it has barred the sale of some food, as requested by some farmers. But he said it may be possible to lift the restrictions in some areas if food is found to meet the standards in three successive weekly tests.
IAEA officials said last week they had detected high levels of radiation in the village of Iitate, 40 kilometers from the plant and well outside the 20-kilometer evacuation zone. Edano said Sunday that health tests have been conducted on 900 children under age 15 in the village and the surrounding area but that none showed signs of exposure to excessive radiation.
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 12,100 people have been confirmed dead and more than 15,400 are still reported as missing in the twin disasters.
Almost 160,000 people are still living in temporary shelters.