23 May 2011 VOA News The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant says that temporary containers holding radioactive water will be full by the end of the week.
Tokyo Electric Power Company said Monday that it will take until mid-June to build a faciliy that can decontaminate the water and reuse it in the plant.
The water has been pumped out of reactors, where it was sprayed to cool them down in an attempt to contain the nculear distaster triggered by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northwestern Japan.
Also Monday,
Six experts have arrived from the International Atomic Energy Agency's headquarters in Vienna. They will be joined by 14 experts from 12 countries for an investigation that will begin Tuesday and run through June 2.
The experts, led by British chief nuclear inspector Mike Weightman, will spend most of their time in Tokyo but are expected to visit the Fukushima nuclear plant, which has been leaking radiation since a March 11 tsunami knocked out its cooling systems and sparked the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
The team will present its findings at a special ministerial meeting of IAEA member states in Vienna in late June.
On Monday, TEPCO's share price fell 9 percent, the first trading day after the company announced it had suffered a $15 billion loss in the year that ended in March, because of the huge costs of the nuclear disaster.
Japan's NHK national television reported Monday that it has obtained a copy of an operating manual for one of the crippled reactors at the Fukushima plant which shows that technicians violated their own procedures in the crucial hours after the tsunami.
NHK said the technicians waited hours longer than they should have to begin venting steam as pressure built up in the containment vessel at the number one reactor. It said if the proper procedure had been followed, it might have been possible to avoid a hydrogen explosion which is the suspected cause of radiation leakage from that reactor.
Reporting on May 21, 2011 by Martyn Williams | Tokyo with VOA News.....
Leaders of Japan, China and South Korea are in Japan to discuss measures to help disaster response and nuclear safety in East Asia. The leaders visited Fukushima city, about 50 kilometers from the stricken Daiichi nuclear power plant and paid their respects to the 24,000 people dead or missing following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak accompanied Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on a visit to an evacuation center in Fukushima City.
At the center, they spoke to some of the thousands of people displaced by the world's worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl crisis in 1986.
The South Korean and Chinese leaders arrived Saturday morning in Sendai, in disaster-hit Miyagi prefecture, and both made individual visits to places in the region.
President Lee visited Natori City where a massive tsunami swept away everything within several kilometers of the coast. He laid flowers and spoke to reporters
President Lee says he is looking forward to the fast recovery of the region.
Chinese Premier Wen visited the site of a company where a Japanese manager led 20 Chinese workers to safety, shortly before he was drowned in the tsunami waters. The act made headlines in China at the time.
Both China and South Korea sent emergency rescue teams to Japan in the days after the earthquake and tsunami disaster.
After visiting Fukushima, the three leaders moved to Tokyo where their fourth annual trilateral summit is due to begin on Saturday evening with a formal dinner.
Talks between the three countries will take place on Sunday morning. They are expected to agree on measures to help disaster response and nuclear safety in East Asia.
Also up for discussion will be restrictions on Japanese food imports imposed after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said ties between the Japan and its two most important neighbors have been strengthened by the disaster, but history continues to put a strain on the relationships. A reminder of that came just three weeks after the earthquake, when the Japanese government approved new history textbooks that reiterated the country's claim to small islets that both countries claim.
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