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Japan continues to struggle to remove highly toxic water at plant

TOKYO, April 14, Kyodo

The difficult task of removing highly radioactive water at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant continued Thursday, with the level of polluted water in the plant's underground trench found to be edging up again that morning after some 660 tons were pumped out.

The removal of some 60,000 tons of contaminated water from the basements of the Nos. 1 to 3 reactor turbine buildings as well as trenches connected to them is vital, as the water is hampering work to restore key cooling functions of the reactors lost in the March 11 killer earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. pumped out about 660 tons of highly radioactive water Tuesday and Wednesday from one of the trenches to a ''condenser'' inside the nearby No. 2 reactor turbine building, where in normal operations steam from the reactor is converted into water.

But the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that the water level at the vertical part of the trench as of 7 a.m. Thursday had increased by about 3.5 centimeters from the level observed at 6 p.m. Wednesday.

The level of the water is 2.5 centimeters lower than just before the water-transferring mission started.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, the agency's spokesman, said that the rise in the water level is likely linked to the continued injection of water injection into the No. 2 reactor core, which is necessary to prevent the nuclear fuel inside from overheating.

''As there is believed to be around 20,000 tons of water (in the No. 2 reactor turbine building and the trench connected to it), we feel the difficulty of lowering the level of the water in a stable manner,'' he said.

Kyodo News