Video - Don't drink the water in Tokyo.
Video - Fukushima containment crisis very far from over.
Guardian | Japanese officials have conceded they are no closer to resolving the nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi power plant, as new readings showed a dramatic increase in radioactive contamination in the sea.
The pressure to make progress also took its toll on Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the plant's operator, whose chief executive, Masataka Shimizu, was taken to hospital on Tuesday night suffering from exhaustion.
The country's nuclear and industrial safety agency, Nisa, said radioactive iodine-131 at 3,355 times the legal limit had been identified in the sea about 300 yards south of the plant, although officials have yet to determine how it got there.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, a Nisa spokesman, said fishing had stopped in the area, adding that the contamination posed no immediate threat to humans. "We will find out how it happened and do our utmost to prevent it from rising," he said.
The government's acceptance of help from the US and France has strengthened the belief that the battle to save the stricken reactors, now well into its third week, is lost.
On Tuesday, a US engineer who helped install reactors at the plant said he believed the radioactive core in unit 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.
The pressure to make progress also took its toll on Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the plant's operator, whose chief executive, Masataka Shimizu, was taken to hospital on Tuesday night suffering from exhaustion.
The country's nuclear and industrial safety agency, Nisa, said radioactive iodine-131 at 3,355 times the legal limit had been identified in the sea about 300 yards south of the plant, although officials have yet to determine how it got there.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, a Nisa spokesman, said fishing had stopped in the area, adding that the contamination posed no immediate threat to humans. "We will find out how it happened and do our utmost to prevent it from rising," he said.
The government's acceptance of help from the US and France has strengthened the belief that the battle to save the stricken reactors, now well into its third week, is lost.
On Tuesday, a US engineer who helped install reactors at the plant said he believed the radioactive core in unit 2 may have melted through the bottom of its containment vessel and on to a concrete floor.
