Japan’s government is preparing to take a more direct role in the clean-up effort at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, in an ack-nowledgment that Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the stricken plant’s operator, is struggling to solve a crisis over leaking contaminated water.
Officials said yesterday that Tokyo would fund an unprecedented operation to freeze the ground around sensitive parts of the plant, in order to prevent groundwater from seeping in and mixing with dangerously irradiated coolant water.
A toxic mix of runoff and coolant is flowing back out of the battered facility and into the ocean at a rate of about 300 tonnes a day, according to the environment ministry.