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.