Japanese utility and government authorities suffered fresh setbacks Tuesday with the detection of radiation in a fish and news that water gushing from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific had radiation levels more than millions of times above the regulatory limit.
Readings from samples taken Saturday in the concrete pit outside the turbine building of the plant's No. 2 reactor -- one of six at the crisis-plagued plant -- had radiation 7.5 million times the legal limits, said an official with the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the plant. Newer findings, from Tuesday afternoon, showed a slight drop to 5 million times the norm.
The utility company also noted Tuesday that the radiation levels diminished sharply a few dozen meters from the leak, consistent with their assessment that the spill might have a minimal effect on sealife. But even in these spots, radiation levels remained several hundred-thousand times the legal limit.
The entire issued underlined that getting a grip on how to minimize the amount of radiation in the Pacific Ocean is the new, primary battlefront in the weeks-long crisis at the nuclear plant.
And it's a battle that is being lost. Radioactive cesium-137 has a half-life measured in decades. Japan's problems are going to continue for a very long time.
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