NHK.....

Japan's nuclear agency says moving highly radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant's turbine building to a storage facility may not start for another week.

The water in the basement of the turbine building of the plant's Number 2 reactor and a concrete tunnel has been hampering work to restore the reactor's cooling systems.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, has been discharging lower-level radioactive water into the sea from the facility to make room for the highly radioactive water. The work is to end on Friday.

But the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says the facility must first be checked for cracks that might have been caused by the earthquake, and that this could take several days to a week.

The agency says the facility was designed to store low-level radioactive water, and that every effort must be made to make sure that highly radioactive water does not leak.

Thursday, April 07, 2011 17:11 +0900 (JST)