Radioactive water leak stops
Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says it has stopped radioactive water leaking from a concrete pit outside the No.2 reactor at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
On Tuesday, the plant operator drilled a hole into a layer of gravel around the pit, and poured a hardening agent called liquid glass, or sodium silicate, to stop the leak of highly radioactive water into the sea.
TEPCO says the flow was confirmed to have stopped on Wednesday morning, and that there has since been no change in the water level in the pit and the nearby turbine building.
Workers are looking for more possible cracks through which the water could leak out.
Meanwhile, TEPCO is continuing to release about 8,000 tons of wastewater contaminated with low-level radiation into the sea to make room in storage tanks for highly contaminated water. It says about 6,000 tons of water have already been released.
The company is also continuing to spray a synthetic resin solution on the plant’s premises to prevent radioactive dust from becoming airborne.
Debris and dust contaminated with radioactive material have been scattered across the compound by a series of explosions at the No.1 through No.3 reactors.
On Wednesday, the resin solution was sprayed over a 300 square meter area around a pool for spent nuclear fuel.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011 18:51 +0900 (JST)
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