Nuclear plant boss hospitalised

Setbacks mounted in Japan’s nuclear crisis today, with nearby seawater showing the highest radiation levels yet and the president of the wrecked plant being taken to hospital with stress.

Nearly three weeks after the tsunami engulfed the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, the Tokyo Electric Power Company is still struggling to bring it under control.

Radiation leaking from the plant has seeped into the soil and seawater nearby and made its way into produce, raw milk and even tap water as far as Tokyo, 140 miles to the south.

The stress of reining in Japan’s worst crisis since the Second World War has taken its toll on Tepco President Masataka Shimizu, who was sent to hospital late yesterday.

Mr Shimizu, 66, has not been seen in public since a March 13 news conference in Tokyo, raising speculation that he had suffered a breakdown.

For days, officials deflected questions about his whereabouts, saying he was “resting” at company headquarters.

A company spokesman said today that Mr Shimizu had been admitted to a hospital after suffering dizziness and high blood pressure.

The leadership vacuum follows growing criticism of Tepco for its failure to halt the radiation leaks. Bowing deeply, arms at his side, Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata announced at a news conference that he would step in and apologised for the delay.

“We must do everything we can to end this situation as soon as possible for the sake of everyone who has been affected,” said Yuhei Sato, governor of Fukushima prefecture. “I am extremely disappointed and saddened by the suggestion that this might drag out longer.”

Tepco acknowledged publicly for the first time that at least four of the plant’s six reactors will have to be decommissioned once the crisis subsides, citing the corrosive seawater used to cool reactors and spent fuel pools.

Japan’s government has been saying since March 20 that the entire plant must be scrapped.

Nuclear safety officials said sea water 300 yards outside the plant contained 3,355 times the legal limit for the amount of radioactive iodine – the highest rate yet and a sign that more contaminated water was making its way into the ocean.

The amount of iodine-131 found south of the plant does not pose an immediate threat to human health but was a “concern,” said the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Radioactive iodine is short-lived, with a half-life of just eight days, and in any case was expected to dissipate quickly in the ocean. It does not tend to accumulate in shellfish.

Highly toxic plutonium also has been detected in the soil outside the plant, Tepco said. Safety officials said the amounts did not pose a risk to humans, but the finding supports suspicions that dangerously radioactive water is leaking from damaged nuclear fuel rods. There have been no reports of plutonium being found in seawater.

The latest findings on radioactive iodine highlighted the urgent need to power up the power plant’s cooling system. Workers succeeded last week in reconnecting some parts of the plant to the power grid.

But as they pumped in water to cool the reactors and nuclear fuel, they found pools of radioactive water in the basements of several buildings and in trenches outside.

The contaminated water has been emitting many times the amount of radiation that the government considers safe for workers, making it a priority to pump the water out before electricity can be restored.

Tepco plans to spray resin on the ground around the plant to keep radioactive particles from spreading or seeping into the ocean. The company will test the method tomorrow.

“The idea is to glue them to the ground,” he said. But it would be too sticky to use inside buildings or on sensitive equipment.

The spread of radiation has raised concerns about the safety of Japan’s seafood, even though experts say the low levels suggest radiation will not accumulate in fish at unsafe levels.

Experts say the Pacific is so vast that any radiation will be quickly diluted.

As officials seek to bring an end to the nuclear crisis, hundreds of thousands in Japan’s north-east are trying to put their lives back together. The official death toll stood at 11,257 today, with the final figure likely to exceed 18,000.