The operator of Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant started paying “condolence money” yesterday to victims of the nuclear crisis, while it kept pouring radioactive water into the sea.
In desperation, engineers at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant have turned to what are little more than home remedies to stem the flow of contaminated water. Yesterday, they used “liquid glass” in the hope of plugging cracks in a leaking concrete pit.
The operator of the plant said yesterday it had found water there with 5 million times the legal limit of radioactivity as it struggles for a fourth week to contain the disaster.
Underlining the concern over spreading radiation, the government said it was considering imposing radioactivity restrictions on seafood for the first time in the crisis after contaminated fish were found in seas well south of the damaged nuclear reactors.
Workers are struggling to restart cooling pumps — which recycle the water — in four reactors -damaged by last month’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami.
The workers’ problem is that until those are fixed, they must pump in water from outside to prevent overheating and meltdowns. In the process, that creates more contaminated water that has to be pumped out and stored somewhere else or released into the sea.
There is a total of 60,000 tonnes of highly contaminated water in the plant after workers frantically poured in seawater when fuel rods experienced partial meltdown -after the tsunami hit northeast Japan on March 11.
Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) was on Monday forced to start releasing 11,500 tonnes of low-level radioactive seawater after it ran out of storage capacity for more highly contaminated water. The release will continue until Friday.
Radioactive iodine of up to 4,800 times the legal limit has been recorded in the sea near the plant. Cesium was found at levels above safety limits in tiny kounago fish in waters off Ibaraki Prefecture, south of Fukushima, local media reported.
Beijing’s continued provocations in the Taiwan Strait reveal its intention to unilaterally change the “status quo” in the area, the US Department of State said on Saturday, calling for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait issues. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) reported that four China Coast Guard patrol vessels entered restricted and prohibited waters near Kinmen County on Friday and again on Saturday. A State Department spokesperson said that Washington was aware of the incidents, and urged all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from unilaterally changing the “status quo.” “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is in line with our [the
EXTENDED RANGE: Hsiung Sheng missiles, 100 of which might be deployed by the end of the year, could reach Chinese command posts and airport runways, a source said A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday. Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China. They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said. The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at
READY TO WORK: Taiwan is eager to cooperate and is hopeful that like-minded states will continue to advocate for its inclusion in regional organizations, Lai said Maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, and peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region must be a top priority, president-elect William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday after meeting with a delegation of US academics. Leaders of the G7, US President Joe Biden and other international heads of state have voiced concerns about the situation in the Strait, as stability in the region is necessary for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world, Lai said. The vice president, who is to be inaugurated in May, welcomed the delegation and thanked them for their support for Taiwan and issues concerning the Strait. The international community
COOPERATION: Two crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank off Kinmen were rescued, two were found dead and another two were still missing at press time The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was yesterday working with Chinese rescuers to find two missing crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank southwest of Kinmen County yesterday, killing two crew. The joint operation managed to rescue two of the boat’s six crewmembers, but two were already dead when they were pulled from the water, the agency said in a statement. Rescuers are still searching for two others from the Min Long Yu 61222, a boat registered in China’s Fujian Province that capsized and sank 1.03 nautical miles (1.9km) southwest of Dongding Island (東碇), it added. CGA Director-General Chou Mei-wu (周美伍) told a