Japan stops uncontrolled leak from nuclear plant

JAPAN: An accidental leak of highly radioactive water into the ocean from a Japanese nuclear plant was stopped Wednesday, boosting efforts to contain the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

The leak was thought to be a source of spiking radiation levels in the sea, which prompted Japan to announce its first seafood radiation safety standards following the discovery of fish with elevated contamination.

To stop the long-running leak from the Fukushima plant on the Pacific coast, operator TEPCO had injected sodium silicate, a chemical agent known as “water glass”, to solidify soil near a cracked pit where the water had been escaping.

The pit, which has a 20-centimetre crack in its wall, is linked to the plant’s reactor No. 2, one of several that had their cooling systems disabled by a catastrophic earthquake-tsunami disaster on March 11.

“Workers confirmed at 5:38 am (2038 GMT Tuesday) that the water running out of a pit had stopped,” Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said in a statement on Wednesday. Several unsuccessful attempts had been made to try to plug pipes that run to the pit, using a polymer and even newspapers and sawdust, and an effort to seal the crack with cement had also failed to stop the leak. Leaking water from the Fukushima plant has reached more than 1,000 millisieverts and is thought to be the source of radioactive iodine-131 readings in the sea that have hit more than 4,000 times the legal limit.

Amid increasing unease about water contamination, Japan has imposed a legal limit for radioactive iodine in fish and may widen tests to cover a larger area, after elevated levels were discovered in a fish caught off Ibaraki prefecture, south of the crippled plant. TOKYO, Wednesday, AFP