TEPCO begins building steel wall, fence to prevent sea contamination

The operator of a crippled Fukushima nuclear power station started Saturday to install a steel wall and fence to prevent more water containing radioactive substances from seeping into the Pacific Ocean.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. plans to plug a seawater intake connected to the No. 2 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi complex with seven steel sheets and a 120-meter-wide curtain-like fence near the intake and two other locations nearby.

The company already stopped the leakage of water contaminated with radioactive materials from near the intake Wednesday. But it went with the construction of the steel sheet wall and the so-called silt fence to allay environmental concerns that have been raised domestically and internationally.

Radioactive iodine reading was 63,000 times the legal limit in seawater near the intake a day after contaminated water stopped leaking into the sea.

Along with efforts to stop the leakage of toxic water, TEPCO also released about 9,000 tons of water containing relatively low-level radioactive materials into the Pacific, saying the massive amount of such water in the premises slowed the work to get the plant under control.

==Kyodo