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Radioactive water still leaking after powder injection
Source: Xinhua |
April 3, 2011, Sunday
|
Online Edition
Online Edition
RADIOACTIVE water is still leaking after engineers injected a polymer-based powder into pipes leading to a pit connected to Tokyo Electric Power's troubled No. 2 reactor's building, where a 20-centimeter crack has been found to be spewing radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, local media reported today.
The polymeric powder is water absorbent that can soak up 50- times its own volume, the agency said. It is the same absorbent used in babies' diapers.
The move came following the nuclear safety agency saying that contaminated water from the pit is continuing to flow freely into the Pacific Ocean, as efforts made yesterday to block the leak with concrete failed.
Embattled utility firm TEPCO has said that radioactive iodine- 131 more than 10,000 times the legal concentration limit was detected in the water found in the pit.
However, the firm has been lambasted by the government after providing inaccurate information regarding the concentration of radiation in seawater near the plant and the credibility of its radiation monitoring ability has been brought into question.
The nuclear safety agency said that later today engineers will also connect pumps used to inject fresh water into the faltering reactors to an external power source, so that coolant water can be pumped steadily.
Earlier today, TEPCO announced that two of its workers had been found dead in the basement of a reactor's building.
The firm said the two workers in their 20s suffered massive bleeding from multiple trauma wounds following the March 11 quake hitting the plant.
The deaths of the two workers marks the first time the beleaguered operator has confirmed the deaths of any of its employees at the crippled Daiichi facility.
The polymeric powder is water absorbent that can soak up 50- times its own volume, the agency said. It is the same absorbent used in babies' diapers.
The move came following the nuclear safety agency saying that contaminated water from the pit is continuing to flow freely into the Pacific Ocean, as efforts made yesterday to block the leak with concrete failed.
Embattled utility firm TEPCO has said that radioactive iodine- 131 more than 10,000 times the legal concentration limit was detected in the water found in the pit.
However, the firm has been lambasted by the government after providing inaccurate information regarding the concentration of radiation in seawater near the plant and the credibility of its radiation monitoring ability has been brought into question.
The nuclear safety agency said that later today engineers will also connect pumps used to inject fresh water into the faltering reactors to an external power source, so that coolant water can be pumped steadily.
Earlier today, TEPCO announced that two of its workers had been found dead in the basement of a reactor's building.
The firm said the two workers in their 20s suffered massive bleeding from multiple trauma wounds following the March 11 quake hitting the plant.
The deaths of the two workers marks the first time the beleaguered operator has confirmed the deaths of any of its employees at the crippled Daiichi facility.
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