Sombre ceremonies and moments of silence were planned today to mark one month since a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan’s north east coast, killing as many as 25,000 people.

Nearly a million homes suffered blackouts in Japan’s north east today after a strong aftershock that killed two people and piled more misery on a region buried under the rubble of last month’s devastating tsunami.

After notching a rare victory by stopping highly radioactive water from flowing into the Pacific, workers at Japan’s flooded nuclear power complex turned to their next task: injecting nitrogen to prevent more hydrogen explosions.

Workers at Japan’s tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant today finally halted a leak that was sending a tide of radioactive water into the Pacific and exacerbating concerns over the safety of seafood, the operator said.

THE operator of Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant said it had found water with five million times the legal limit of radioactivity as it struggles for a fourth week to contain the world’s biggest nuclear disaster in quarter of a century.

Workers used a milky white dye today as they frantically tried to trace the path of highly radioactive water which is gushing from a tsunami-damaged Japanese nuclear plant and leaking into the ocean.

JAPAN’S Fukushima nuclear power plant may not be brought under control for several more months following the devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

Japan’s tsunami-stricken nuclear power plant is leaking highly radioactive water into the sea, nuclear safety officials said.

Japan’s prime minister has promised to win the battle against an overheating nuclear plant even as atomic safety officials questioned the accuracy of radiation measurements at the complex.

RADIATION levels are continuing to rise in the ocean outside a leaking nuclear plant in Japan’s northeast as officials debated whether to broaden the evacuation zone around the tsunami-damaged facility.

Japan is turning to other countries for help as it struggles to stabilise its tsunami-stricken nuclear plant and stop radiation leaks.

New readings show radiation levels continue to rise in the ocean outside a leaking nuclear plant in Japan's north east, officials said today, as they debated whether to broaden the evacuation zone around the tsunami-damaged facility.

Seawater outside the crippled nuclear power plant in north-eastern Japan was found to contain 3,335 times the usual amount of radioactive iodine – the highest rate yet and a sign that more contaminated water was making its way into the ocean, officials said today.

Japan was on “maximum alert” to bring its nuclear crisis under control, the prime minister insisted today.

Highly toxic plutonium is seeping from the damaged nuclear power plant in Japan’s tsunami disaster zone into the soil outside, officials said.

WORKERS discovered new pools of radioactive water leaking from Japan’s crippled nuclear complex as emergency crews struggled to pump out hundreds of tonnes of contaminated water and bring the plant back under control.

Highly radioactive iodine seeping from Japan’s damaged nuclear complex may be making its way into seawater further north of the plant than previously thought, officials said today, adding to radiation concerns as the crisis stretches into a third week.

Mounting problems, including incorrect radiation figures and a shortage of storage tanks, have stymied emergency workers as they tried to nudge Japan’s stricken nuclear complex back from the edge of disaster.

Emergency workers struggling to pump contaminated water from Japan’s stricken nuclear complex fled from one of the troubled reactors today after reporting a huge increase in radioactivity – a spike that officials later said was inaccurate.

Radioactivity in contaminated water in one reactor unit at a damaged Japanese nuclear power plant tested 10 million times higher than normal, forcing the evacuation of workers and again delaying efforts to bring the complex under control, the plant’s operator said today.

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.

Japanese nuclear safety officials say they suspect that the reactor core at one unit of the troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant may have breached.

THERE was renewed concern at Japan’s earthquake-crippled nuclear power plant last night due to rising temperatures around the core of one of its struggling reactors.

A pool for storing spent fuel at Japan's crippled nuclear plant is heating up, with temperatures around boiling point, an official said today.

Officials are racing to restore electricity to Japan’s leaking nuclear plant, but getting the power flowing will hardly be the end of their battle: with its mangled machinery and partly melted reactor cores, bringing the complex under control is a monstrous job.

Japan's nuclear experts admitted today that the Fukushima reactor disaster was worse than anything they ever imagined could have happened.

In the first sign that contamination from Japan’s stricken nuclear complex had seeped into the food chain, officials said today that radiation levels in spinach and milk from farms near the tsunami-crippled facility exceeded government safety limits.

SIRENS wailed along a devastated coastline to mark exactly one week since an earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear emergency, and the government acknowledged it was slow to respond to the disasters that the prime minister called a “great test for the Japanese people.”

Emergency crews are still battling to cool overheated nuclear fuel at a stricken nuclear plant a week after the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck Japan.

The Japanese government says it was overwhelmed by the scale of to the huge earthquake and tsunami, slowing the response to the nuclear crisis.