Japan’s PM vows not to abandon tsunami survivors

PRIME Minister Naoto Kan promised yesterday he would “never abandon” survivors of Japan’s tsunami as he tried to focus attention on the future, despite a high-stakes battle at a nuclear plant.

Kan, on only his second trip to the disaster zone in the month since the March 11 tragedy, said the government would “work as fast as possible” to house 150,000 people living in emergency shelters since the disaster struck.

Speaking to survivors in Ishinomaki city, a major fishing hub in the worst-hit northeast of the country, the prime minister said the government would do all it could to ensure fishing “can be resumed as soon as possible”.

“The government will give all its strength to work with you. We will never abandon you,” Kan told listeners to a radio station in the city after witnessing the devastation wreaked by the 9.0-magnitude quake and the massive tsunami it spawned.

The fishing industry, vital to many small communities in this island nation, has been seriously damaged by fears over radioactive contamination in the air and sea from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant.

On Sunday a worker battling to cool overheating reactors there was taken to hospital after complaining of feeling sick, the plant’s operator said.

Engineers trying to halt the spread of radiation near the plant after sealing a leak spewing highly contaminated water into the sea began installing a “silt curtain” to try to prevent radioactive mud from spreading around the ocean.

But at the same time, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) is deliberately dumping more than 10,000 tonnes of mildly radioactive water into the sea to free up urgently needed storage for highly toxic liquid.

A report yesterday said a high level of caesium had been found in the sand lance, or konago, fish caught in Fukushima prefecture, where the stricken nuclear plant is located.

Officials found radiation measuring 570 becquerels per kilogram in a sample caught on Thursday, higher than the legal limit of 500.

Kan’s visit came as 22,000 troops engaged in an intensive search for bodies along Japan’s northern Pacific coast.

Around 15,000 people are still unaccounted for, with 13,000 confirmed dead.