Reactor leaks radioactive water into sea

Plant workers discovered a crack about eight inches wide in the maintenance pit,which lies between the No. 2 Reactor and the sea and holds cables to power seawater pumps,Japan’s nuclear regulator said.

The air directly above the water leaking into the sea had a radiation reading of more than 1,000 millisieverts an hour,said Hidehiko Nishiyama,deputy director-general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. Earlier on Saturday,Nishiyama said above-normal levels of radioactive materials were detected about 25 miles south of the Fukushima plant,much further than had previously been reported.

The pit was filled with four to eight inches of contaminated water,said the operator of the plant,Tokyo Electric. Highly radioactive water has also been discovered in the reactor’s turbine building. Workers will try to patch up the crack with concrete,the company said.

Earlier on Saturday,Prime Minister Naoto Kan made his first visit to the region since last month’s disaster,where he promised to do everything possible to help. His tour came a day after asking Japan to start focusing on the long hard task of rebuilding the tsunami-shattered prefectures.

“We’ll be together with you to the very end,” Kan said during a stop in Rikuzentakata,a town of about 20,000 people that was destroyed. “Everybody,try your best.”

Dressed in a blue work jacket,Kan also visited refugees stranded in an elementary school and then a sports complex about 20 miles south of the disabled nuclear plant. The training facility has been turned into a staging area for firefighters,Self-Defence Forces and workers from Tokyo Electric.HIROKO TABUCHI & KEN BELSON