Setbacks mounted yesterday in the crisis over Japan’s tsunami-damaged nuclear facility, with nearby seawater testing at its highest radiation levels yet and the president of the plant operator checking into a hospital with hypertension.
Nearly three weeks after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami that slammed into the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, knocking out cooling systems that keeps nuclear fuel rods from overheating, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) is still struggling to bring the facility under control.
The country’s Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko reached out to some of the thousands displaced by the twin disasters — which have killed more than 11,000 people — spending about an hour consoling a group of evacuees at a Tokyo center.
“I couldn’t talk with them very well because I was nervous, but I felt that they were really concerned about us,” said Kenji Ukito, an evacuee from a region near the plant. “I was very grateful.”
At the crippled plant, leaking radiation has seeped into the soil and seawater nearby and made its way into produce, raw milk and even tap water as far as Tokyo, 220km to the south.
The stress of reining in Japan’s worst crisis since World War II has taken its toll on TEPCO president Masataka Shimizu, who went to a hospital late on Tuesday.
Shimizu, 66, has not been seen in public since a March 13 press conference in Tokyo, raising speculation that he had suffered a breakdown. For days, officials deflected questions about Shimizu’s whereabouts, saying he was “resting” at company headquarters.
Spokesman Naoki Tsunoda said yesterday that Shimizu had been admitted to a Tokyo hospital after suffering dizziness and high blood pressure.
Bowing deeply, arms at his side, TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata announced at a press conference that he would step in and apologized for the delay.
Yesterday, nuclear safety officials said seawater 300m outside the plant contained 3,355 times the legal limit for the amount of radioactive iodine — the highest rate yet.
The amount of iodine-131 found south of the plant does not pose an immediate threat to human health, but it was a “concern,” said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official.
In another setback, white smoke was spotted coming from one of the reactor buildings yesterday evening. Firefighters responded and electricity to the unit was cut since it appeared to come from an area that houses the electrical switchboard, nuclear safety official Kazuya Aoki said.
The smoke stopped within 20 minutes and no radiation was released, he said.
Highly toxic plutonium has also been detected in the soil outside the plant, TEPCO said.
Safety officials said the amounts did not pose a risk to humans, but the finding supports suspicions that dangerously radioactive water is leaking from damaged fuel rods.
As officials seek to bring an end to the nuclear crisis, hundreds of thousands in the northeast are trying to put their lives back together. The official death toll stood at 11,257 yesterday, with the final toll likely to surpass 18,000.
In the town of Rikuzentakata, one 24-year-old said she’s been searching every day for a missing friend, but will have to return to her job because she has run out of cash.
Life is far from back to normal, she said.
“Our family posted a sign in our house: Stay positive,” Eri Ishikawa said.
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