A worker wearing a protective suit points at a cracked concrete pit near its No. 2 reactor of TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima prefecture. The operator of Japan's stricken nuclear plant said it had found radioactive water leaking into the sea from a cracked concrete pit at its No. 2 reactor in Fukushima. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
TOKYO - JAPAN'S tsunami-stricken nuclear power plant was leaking highly radioactive water into the sea Saturday, nuclear safety officials said.
The plant has been spewing radioactivity since March 11, when a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami knocked out power, disabling cooling systems and allowing radiation to seep out of the overheating reactors.
The water was seeping Saturday from a newly discovered crack in a maintenance pit on the edge of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear site into the Pacific Ocean, Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.
Measurements show the air right above it contained 1,000 millisieverts of radioactivity. Exposure to 500 millisieverts over a short period of time can increase the long-term risk of cancer.
But experts say radiation is quickly diluted by the vast Pacific and that even large amounts have little effect.
It wasn't immediately clear whether workers who have been rushing to bring the reactors under control were exposed. People living within 12 miles (20 kilometres) of the Fukushima plant have been evacuated. -- AP
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