Rain increases radioactive water at nuke plant

Heavy rain has increased the volume of highly radioactive water building up inside the disaster-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Contaminated water already floods the basements of the turbine and reactor buildings, partly due to water injections to cool down the reactor cores.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, now says water levels rose faster on Monday as rain poured inside the badly damaged buildings.

In the basement of the No.1 reactor building, radioactive water rose by 37.6 centimeters during the 24 hours through Tuesday morning.

At the No.2 reactor, the level of water rose by 8.6 centimeters in an underground tunnel extending from the building.

The water in the tunnel's shaft is now only about 39 centimeters below ground level. The utility is speeding up work to seal the opening.

TEPCO is planning to decontaminate and recycle the radioactive water as coolant for the reactors. But the system won't be in place until July at the earliest.

In the meantime, the utility is studying steps to prevent rainwater from seeping in. It will also consider new storage sites to which the contaminated water can be quickly transferred as the rainy season approaches.