Japan

Radiation Spikes in Japan's Seawater Near Nuke Plant

Officials not sure where leak is coming from.

It's two steps forward, one step back at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, where a spokesman for Japan's nuclear safety agency said radiation levels in seawater around the plant have spiked to 1,250 times the legal limit. The radiation doesn't pose a threat to human health, the spokesman said, “because nobody is engaged in fishery in the evacuation area within a radius of 20 kilometers.” But the leak raises concerns that there's a new, unidentified leak in the plant. Officials aren't sure where the radiation is coming from. The spike in radiation comes a day after highly radioactive water inside the No. 3 reactor raises concerns of a core breach. There's some good news, though: all the units are hooked up to the electric grid, temperatures in the spent fuel pools have fallen, and workers have begun to drain pools of radioactive water from one of the reactors. The U.S. military is also bringing in fresh water to douse the reactors, a change from seawater which encrusts the rods in salt and makes them harder to cool.