TOKYO (MNI) – Japan’s efforts to contain radiation leaks from the
quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant continued on Wednesday
amid fairly strong aftershocks while Tokyo Electric Power Co, the plant
operator, is mulling salary cuts for its executives.

But concern about food safety lingers. The government today said it
has decided to restrain shipments of mushrooms grown in open culture in
16 villages and towns in Fukushima Prefecture, as data showed high
levels of radioactive material near the stricken power plant.

“I would like to apologize from my heart for causing great
inconvenience and worries due to troubles at our nuclear power plant,”
TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu, who has recently returned from a
hospital stay for fatigue, told reporters on Wednesday.

“As we prepare for compensation for the damage stemming from the
nuclear disaster, we want to examine cutting salaries for directors and
executives,” he said, without giving further details.

Shimizu also declined to say whether he will resign to take the
blame for what critics regard as lax supervision and slow response to
the damaged plant, which has sparked the worst nuclear crisis since the
1986 Chernobyl disaster.

“I understand my duty is to resolve the crisis at the Fukushima
Daiichi plant as quickly as possible,” he said, without providing any
timetables or how the utility giant will decommission the reactors.

Meantime, the plant operator said it continued to transfer
radioactive water in the tunnels outside the No.2 reactor turbine
building into the condenser and nearly emptied the water in the tunnel.

It was a small step forward in creating a safer environment for
workers to resume repair work on the cooling systems for the six-reactor
complex that have been knocked out by the violent tsunami that hit
Japan’s northeastern Pacific coast on March 11.

Among continued aftershocks, an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.8
struck northeastern Japan at 1008 JST (0108 GMT) on Wednesday, shaking
buildings as far as in Tokyo.

The epicenter, about 10 kilometers deep, was onshore near the coast
of Fukushima where Tokyo Electric Power Co’s two nuclear power plants
are located.

TEPCO said the latest quake did not cut off external power supply
which is used to inject water into No. 1, 2 and 3 reactors at the plant,
an operation necessary to cool off the reactors and prevent a recurrence
of an explosion.

The complex is located about 200 kilometers northeast of Tokyo and
the crucial source of electricity supply to the capital and other big
cities in the Kanto region.

On Tuesday, a 5.5-magnitude quake hit Nagano Prefecture, central
Japan, at 0726 JST, a 6.4-magnitude quake struck off the east coast of
Chiba Prefecture at 0808 JST, and a 6.3-magnitude jolted Fukushima and
Ibaraki prefectures at 1407 JST.

On Monday afternoon, a strong aftershock measuring 7.0 hit
northeastern Japanese cities. Tsunami warnings were issued first but
withdrawn later.

Workers at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
were temporarily evacuated after Monday’s aftershock, which hit offshore
in the same area as the massive quake on March 11.

It was the second large aftershock with a magnitude of more than 7
in the last week.

Hundreds of aftershocks have jolted wide areas of central, eastern
and northern Japan since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake, the largest ever
for Japan.

Japan’s nuclear safety commission on Tuesday raised the
international alert for the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
plant to 7 from 5, the highest level on the international scale and the
same as that given to the meltdown at Chernobyl.

“Accumulated emission of radioactive material from the Fukushima
Daiichi plant reached about 10% of the amount that had been detected at
Chernobyl,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of the Nuclear
and Industrial Safety Agency said on Tuesday.

The Chernobyl accident, in 1986, released hundreds of thousands of
terabecquerels of radioactive iodine-131 into a wide area of eastern
Europe.

On Wednesday, Nishiyama said samples collected on Monday from
around 15 km (9 miles) off the coast of Minamisoma City in Fukushima
Prefecture showed that radiation levels in the water rose to 23 times
the legal limit from 9.3 times detected on April 7.

Meanwhile, TEPCO’s Shimizu said he wants the utility firm to be an
independent entity, adding it is not the right time to discuss prospects
of its listing status.

On Wednesday Jiji Press reported that the Japanese government may
consider splitting TEPCO’s operation which oversees nuclear power plants
in Fukushima from the plant operator and transfer it to a separate
entity which the government will set up.

The state-owned organization would take charge of claim settlements
stemming from the crisis as well as decommissioning of the damaged
reactors, the report said.

TEPCO would maintain its listing status on the Tokyo Stock Exchange
and focus on offering utility service in the existing areas of Tokyo and
neighbouring cities, Jiji said.

The official death toll from the March 11 disaster is now 13,357
people, with 15,148 still missing, as of 1500 JST (0600 GMT) on
Wednesday, according to the National Policy Agency.

tokyo@marketnews.com
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