Japan seeks Russian help to end nuclear crisis

TOKYO, (Reuters) – Japan has asked nuclear  superpower Russia to send a special radiation treatment ship  used to decommission nuclear submarines as it fights to contain  the world’s worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl, Japanese media  said late yesterday.

Japanese engineers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant  have been forced to release radioactive waste water into the  sea. At the same time they are resorting to desperate measures  to contain the damage, such as using bath salts to try to locate  the source of leaks at the crippled complex 240 km (150 miles)  north of Tokyo.

Three weeks after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and massive  tsunami hit northeast Japan, sending some of Daiichi’s reactors  into partial meltdown, engineers are no closer to regaining  control of the power plant or stopping radioactive leaks.

The quake and tsunami left nearly 28,000 people dead or  missing and Japan’s northeast coast a wreck.