Contaminated water escapes from reactor building

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TOKYO, Mar 28 (Agencies): Highly contaminated water has escaped from a reactor building at Japan's quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and may leak into the ocean, the operator said Monday, appealing for overseas help in the crisis. Radiation fears have disrupted efforts to restart the cooling system of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was battered by a massive earthquake and tsunami more than two weeks ago that has left over 28,000 people dead or missing. Earlier, Japan's government strongly criticised the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), over mistaken radiation readings. Officials said the radiation scare inside the No 2 reactor was caused by a partial meltdown of fuel rods. This discovery of highly radioactive water outside a reactor building is a worrying development. Up until now, pools of water with extremely high levels of radiation have only been detected within the reactor buildings themselves. The water was found in an underground maintenance tunnel, with one end located about 55m (180ft) from the shore. Plant operator TEPCO said a large amount of highly radioactive water had leaked from reactor two's turbine building into an underground maintenance tunnel that is now close to overflowing. The water is thought to have leaked from the vessel containing the fuel rods-which are suspected to have temporarily melted-or from the pipe system. The discovery comes as Japan's chief cabinet secretary said that the priority at the plant was to ensure that contaminated water did not leak into the soil or the sea. Yukio Edano was speaking at a news conference a day after Tepco said radiation levels at reactor No 2 were 10 million times higher than normal before correcting that figure to 100,000. "Considering the fact that the monitoring of radioactivity is a major condition to ensure safety, this kind of mistake is absolutely unacceptable," Mr Edano said. That water is the most contaminated to be found at the plant so far, exceeding 1,000 millisieverts per hour. Tepco has apologised but the mistaken reading at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has called into question the operating company's handling of the current crisis, our correspondent says. Tepco has been criticised for a lack of transparency and failing to provide information more promptly and for making a number of mistakes, including worker clothing. Two workers were taken to hospital last week after wading though contaminated water with inadequate protection. They were expected to be released on Monday. Contamination from the plant northeast of Tokyo has already wafted into the air and been detected in farm produce and tap water, although officials stress there is no imminent health threat. Seawater near the plant has been found to contain radioactive iodine more than 1,850 times the legal limit, although it is not exactly clear how the contamination spread to the Pacific Ocean. TEPCO was severely reprimanded by the government Monday, a day after it erroneously said radiation in water at the site had reached 10 million times the normal level. It later issued a much lower-but still dangerous-figure. "Considering the fact that the monitoring of radioactivity is a major condition to ensure safety, this kind of mistake is absolutely unacceptable," said top government spokesman Yukio Edano. Adding to questions about the handling of the crisis, TEPCO said its president Masataka Shimizu, 66, took several days off from a joint emergency taskforce with the government due to sickness, but has now returned to work. TEPCO shares plunged nearly 18 per cent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Monday, while the broader market saw a day of subdued trading as the Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.6 percent. Work to restore power at reactor two has been suspended since Sunday because of the danger posed by the radioactive water leaks. The immediate focus is on draining the highly radioactive water from the turbine room basements, but without releasing it into the environment. Food safety fears have prompted Tokyo as well as the United States, European Union, China and a host of other nations to halt shipments of certain farm produce from affected regions of Japan. Thailand said Monday that it had seized a batch of sweet potato from Japan due to abnormally high-but not unsafe-levels of radiation.