Japan to use special absorbent to soak up radioactive water
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Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) owner and operator of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Sunday prepared to take new measures to stop radioactive water from flowing freely into the Pacific Ocean.
According to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, engineers will inject a polymer-based powder into pipes leading to a pit connected to the plant's troubled No. 2 reactor's building, where a 20-centimeter crack has been found to be spewing radioactive water.
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 comes following the nuclear safety agency saying that contaminated water from the pit is continuing to flow freely into the Pacific Ocean, as efforts made on Saturday 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 on Sunday 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 on Sunday, 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.
