Japan’s Nuclear and
Industrial Safety Agency said Sunday that efforts to stem the flow of
radioactive water leaking from the troubled No. 2 reactor building of the
stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean have as
yet been unsuccessful.

A view of a crack leading to a damaged pit at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant No. 2 reactor in Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan April 2, 2011 in this handout photo released by Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency on April 3, 2011. Japanese engineers grappling on Sunday to end the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl tried to seal a crack that has been leaking radiation into the ocean from a crippled reactor. Picture taken April 2, 2011. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Earlier Sunday engineers
injected 80 kilograms of a polymer- based powder into pipes leading to a pit
connected to the plant’s No. 2 reactor’s building, where a 20-centimeter crack
has been found to be leaking radioactive water.

The polymeric powder is
water absorbent and can soak up 50- times its own volume in liquid and was used
in conjunction with 60 kilograms of sawdust and three bags of shredded
newspaper, the agency said.

But the flow of
contaminated water continues to exude from the seafront pit, the agency said,
although the rate of leakage has remained the same and the concoction of
absorbent materials have not been flushed into the sea, the agency said.

Earlier moves to stem the
flow including attempts to encase the cracked pipe in concrete also failed
leaving the agency to now wait until Monday until the plant’s operator Tokyo
Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) can provide new data to check if Sunday’s efforts to
prevent radioactive substances flowing freely into the ocean have had any effect
at all.

On Monday TEPCO will also
try to determine the exact route of the radioactive flow by draining colored
water from the pit, Deputy Director-General of Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial
Safety Agency Hidehiko Nishiyama said.

But whilst 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,
Nishiyama said that no similar leaks had been found in any of the other
reactor’s pits at the crippled Daiichi facility.

Local, national and
international concerns are rife however due to the escalating amount of
radioactive substances flowing into the Pacific Ocean and the potential threat
this will cause to marine life and the fishing industry.

Earlier Sunday Chief
Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference that the government
believes that it may take several months until the radiation-leaking power plant
is brought under control.

“If we apply methods
considered to be normal, I believe that it will be something like that,” Japan’s
top government spokesperson said.

“While it may not be
feasible, we have been asking for other possibilities to be explored to shorten
that period,” Edano said, adding that numerous alternative solutions were being
considered in an effort to bring the nation’s biggest nuclear crisis since WWII
to an end.

Edano also said that some
900 thyroid tests have been conducted on infants in the vicinity of the troubled
plant, but none of the tests has as yet shown signs of radiation poisoning.

Separately, special
government adviser Goshi Hosono told reporters Sunday that individual time
frames will be established to curb radiation leaks into the air, seawater and
the ground.

Engineers on Sunday also
worked to reconnect pumps to an external power source to provide a steady
injection of water coolant into the troubled reactors.

The pumps had previously
been powered by the facility’s emergency diesel generators.

The No. 2 reactor
sustained the worst damage following the March 11 magnitude-9.0 earthquake and
ensuing tsunami that damaged the reactor’s buildings and knocked out four of the
reactor’s critical cooling functions causing some of the nuclear fuel rods to
partially melt and be exposed to the atmosphere.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet