Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said yesterday that the country was on “maximum alert” to bring its nuclear crisis under control, but the spread of radiation raised concerns about the ability of experts to stabilize the crippled reactor complex.
Kan told parliament that Japan was grappling with its worst problems since World War II.
“This quake, tsunami and the nuclear accident are the biggest crises for Japan” in decades, said Kan, dressed in one of the blue work jackets that have become ubiquitous among bureaucrats since the tsunami.
He said the crises remained unpredictable, but added: “We will continue to handle it in a state of maximum alert.”
The magnitude 9.0 offshore earthquake on March 11 triggered a tsunami that slammed minutes later into Japan’s northeast, wiping out towns and knocking out power and backup systems at the coastal Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
Police said more than 11,000 bodies have been recovered, but the final death toll is expected to exceed 18,000. Hundreds of thousands remain homeless, their homes and livelihoods destroyed. Damage could amount to US$310 billion — the most expensive natural disaster on record, the government said.
The nuclear power plant has been leaking radiation that has made its way into vegetables, raw milk and tap water as far away as Tokyo. Residents within 20km of the plant were ordered to leave and some nations banned the imports of food products from the Fukushima region.
Highly toxic plutonium was the latest contaminant found seeping into the soil outside the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said.
Safety officials said the amounts did not pose a risk to humans, but they said the finding supports suspicions that dangerously radioactive water is leaking from damaged nuclear fuel rods.
The discovery of plutonium, released from fuel rods only when temperatures are extremely high, confirms the severity of the damage, Nuclear safety official Hidehiko Nishiyama said.
“The situation is very grave,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters yesterday. “We are doing our utmost to contain the damage.”
Kan, meanwhile, faced stinging criticism from opposition lawmakers over his handling of the nuclear disaster as is stretches into a third week.
“We cannot let you handle the crisis,” lawmaker Yosuke Isozaki said in parliament. “We cannot let you be in charge of Japan’s crisis management.”
Edano admitted yesterday that Japanese safety standards were not enough to protect the complex against the tsunami’s power.
“Our preparedness was insufficient,” Edano told reporters. “When the current crisis is over, we must examine the accident closely and thoroughly review” safety standards.
An AP investigation after the tsunami found that TEPCO officials had dismissed scientific evidence and geological history that indicated that a massive earthquake — and subsequent tsunami — was far more likely than they believed.
The plant was pounded by water far higher and stronger than the complex was prepared to endure, the investigation found.
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