JAPANESE Prime Minister Naoto Kan said yesterday he was ready for a long fight to bring a quake- hit nuclear plant under control but was convinced Japan would overcome the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.

US naval barges loaded with freshwater sped toward Japan’s overheated nuclear plant today to help workers scrambling to stem a worrying rise in radioactivity and remove dangerously contaminated water from the facility.