Japanese N-Plant Keeps Collecting Highly Radioactive Water

Fukushima, April 13 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501> on Wednesday continued pumping out highly radioactive water from a tunnel near the No. 2 reactor of its crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
The water is being collected from a vertical pit connected to the underground trench that stretches toward the sea from the reactor turbine building, into a steam condenser nearby, officials said.
Noting what appears to be a favorable sign, the officials said the water level inside the pit dropped 4 centimeters from late Tuesday afternoon to early Wednesday morning.
The contaminated water, which originated from the No. 2 reactor, exists inside the basement of the turbine building and the trench, with the combined volume estimated at about 20,000 tons.
In a bid to prevent the water from spilling over the pit, Tokyo Electric started an operation to remove 700 tons of water from the No. 2 reactor late on Tuesday.
Similar amounts of such water also exist inside the turbine building basements and other nearby facilities of the No. 1 and the No. 3 reactors, though the degree of its radioactivity is believed to be weaker than the water from the No. 2 reactor.
Tokyo Electric is trying to remove the water from the basements because the water blocks plant workers from fixing electric equipment there, which is crucial to restoring the reactors' original cooling systems.
The plant was damaged by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
The water level inside the pit was rising from April 6, when Tokyo Electric stopped a leak of highly radioactive water into the sea near the water intake of the No. 2 reactor.
In order to prevent further diffusion of the leaked water, Tokyo Electric installed silt fences around a breakwater on the south of the plant on Monday and built a steel wall to block the intake on Tuesday.
Tokyo Electric is also checking the plant's central nuclear waste disposal facility, from which about 9,000 tons of low-level radioactive water was dumped into the sea through Sunday. The firm hopes to use the facility, capable of holding up to 30,000 tons of water, to store the highly radioactive water that has leaked from the reactors.