Radioactive water is being removed from inside the buildings of the Fukushima Daiichi plant in order to allow engineers to repair the plant’s cooling system damaged by the tsunami, Kyodo news agency reports.
The radioactive water found at the No. 2 reactor is believed to have leaked into the basement after having “contact with fuel rods (in the reactor’s core) that have partially melted,’‘ Japanese official spokesperson Yukio Edano said Monday.
He also added that a continuation of the meltdown is not likely.
Edano said the government will put all its efforts into preventing the contaminated water from getting into seawater or seeping below ground.
The plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. corrected its earlier report, saying the level of radiation in the water at the No. 2 reactor was 100,000 times higher than usual as opposed to an earlier number of 10 million.
Meanwhile, high levels of radiation were again detected in the sea water. The Japanese nuclear agency claims, however, that there is no sign of radioactive water from the plant getting into sea, and says it is working on trying to prevent that from happening.