Fury at radiation leak figures blunder: Japan power firm attacked after warning causes panic

Homeless: a mother walks with her child through the boxes of personal possessions at an evacuation centre in Fukushima
Tom Harper12 April 2012

Japanese ministers today launched a stinging attack on the company running the tsunami-hit nuclear plant after it caused panic by incorrectly warning radiation was 10 million times above normal levels.

The government said the blunder by Tokyo Electric Power Company was "absolutely unacceptable" and "could not be forgiven" after it forced heroic workers fighting nuclear meltdown at Fukushima to stop work for eight hours.

The mistake fuelled fears that the firm had lost control of the struggle to contain radiation which is still 100,000 times higher than usual -way above the level deemed safe.

New readings today showed dangerous contamination in the surrounding sea has spread one mile further from the troubled reactor, which was badly damaged by the tsunami this month.

Japan blamed the increase in radioactive iodine on a leak of water used to cool partially-melted fuel rods in the basement of the No 2 reactor, 150 miles north of Tokyo.

However, officials were today more concerned with calming panic triggered by Tepco's erroneous statements. The "Atomic Samurai" bravely working to prevent nuclear disaster fled for their lives yesterday when Tepco announced radiation was measured at more than 1,000 millisieverts an hour, compared with safe levels of 250 millisieverts over an entire year.

However Japan's biggest utility company, which recorded annual sales of £37 billion last year, was forced to backtrack eight hours later. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano today said: "Considering the fact that the monitoring of radioactivity is a major condition to ensure safety, this kind of mistake is absolutely unacceptable.

"This sort of mistake is not something that can be forgiven and the government has ordered Tepco not to repeat this."

Workers today resumed pumping out the hundreds of tons of radioactive water inside several buildings at the six-unit plant. The water must be removed and safely stored before work can continue to restore power to the plant's regular cooling system.

An earthquake measuring 6.5 off the battered coast of Miyagi prefecture in the north-east sparked a tsunami alert today. No damage or injuries were reported.

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