Radiation levels have surged in seawater near a tsunami-stricken nuclear power station in Japan, officials said Saturday, as engineers battled to stabilise the plant in hazardous conditions.
Urgent efforts were under way to drain pools of highly radioactive water near the reactors after several workers suffered radiation burns while installing cables as part of efforts to restore the critical cooling systems.
The new safety worries further complicated efforts to bring the ageing facility under control, and raised fears that the fuel rod vessels or their valves and pipes are leaking.
"It is becoming very important to get rid of the puddles quickly," said an official at the nuclear safety agency, Hidehiko Nishiyama.
One of the worst-case scenarios at reactor three would be that the fuel inside the reactor core -- a volatile uranium-plutonium mix -- has already started to burn its way through its steel pressure vessel.
"Highly radioactive water is flowing inside the buildings and then into the sea, which is worrying for fish and marine vegetation," said Olivier Isnard, an expert at France's Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety.
"One hypothesis is that the reactor vessel is breached and highly radioactive corium is coming out."
Fire engines have hosed thousands of tons of seawater onto the plant in a bid to keep the fuel rods inside reactor cores and pools from being exposed to the air, where they could reach critical stage and go into full meltdown.
Several hundred metres offshore in the Pacific Oce
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