Japan radiation leak scare grows

TOKYO. March 18. KAZINFORM Japanese military helicopters and fire trucks poured water on an overheating nuclear facility on Thursday and the plant operator said electricity to part of the crippled complex could be restored in a desperate bid to avert catastrophe; Kazinform refers to Arab News.

Washington and other foreign capitals expressed growing alarm about radiation leaking from the earthquake-shattered plant, 240 km north of Tokyo.

"The situation continues to be very serious," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano told reporters at Vienna airport as he left with a group of nuclear experts for Japan.

Workers were trying to connect a 1-km-long power cable from the main grid to restart water pumps to cool reactor No. 2, which does not house spent fuel rods considered the biggest risk of spewing radioactivity into the atmosphere.

One official from the plant operator told a late night briefing the cable could be connected within hours. Other officials said it was unclear if water pumps at reactor No. 2, which sustained less damage from a series of explosions, would work.

The top US nuclear regulator said the cooling pool for spent fuel rods at reactor No.4 may have run dry and another was leaking.

Japan's nuclear agency said it could not confirm if water was covering the fuel rods. The plant operator said it believed the reactor spent-fuel pool still had water as of Wednesday, and made clear its priority was the spent-fuel pool at the No.3 reactor.

At its worst, radiation in Tokyo has reached 0.809 microsieverts per hour this week, 10 times below what a person would receive if exposed to a dental x-ray. On Thursday, radiation levels were barely above average.

Many Tokyo residents stayed indoors, usually busy streets were nearly deserted and many shops were closed; Kazinform cites Arab News.

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