Radioactive water removal hits snag, high iodine detected in sea

Kyodo News -

Efforts to remove radiation-contaminated water filling up at a troubled reactor building and an underground trench connected to it at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have hit a snag, casting a shadow on restoration of the vital cooling functions at the site, the government's nuclear safety agency said Wednesday.

The evolving nuclear crisis also showed no signs of abating, as the agency said the same day the highest concentration of radioactive iodine-131 was detected Tuesday in a seawater sample taken near the plant's drainage outlets in the Pacific Ocean. The density was 3,355 times the maximum level permitted under law.

Workers rushed to pump out radiation-polluted water that has been filling up the basement of the No. 1 reactor's turbine building and the tunnel-like trench connected to it, but they found out Tuesday a tank accommodating the water from the building had become full, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

The engineers also newly spotted water polluted with low-level radiation at a building designed for radioactive waste disposal at the plant, where the trench water is meant to be transferred. They nonetheless finished laying hoses to discharge the trench water, according to the agency.

Despite the halt of water-pumping operations at the No. 1 turbine building, the depth of stagnant water was confirmed to have been halved to 20 centimeters, the agency said.

On Wednesday evening, smoke was temporarily seen rising from a power distribution panel at the No. 1 reactor of the Fukushima Daini nuclear plant, some 10 kilometers south of the Daiichi power station, but it soon disappeared.

No radiation leak was confirmed from the site and nobody was injured in the incident, the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

At the Daiichi plant, radioactive water has also been soaking the basements of the Nos. 2-3 reactor buildings and filling the underground tunnels linked to them. The operator known as TEPCO continued work to secure enough space to accommodate the polluted water at the plant's tanks.

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