The level of radioactive iodine in the sea off Japan’s disaster-hit Fukushima nuclear plant has soared to its highest reading yet at 4,385 times the legal limit, the plant operator said on Thursday.

Radiation levels in the sea off Japan's stricken nuclear plant hit their highest reading yet, officials said on Wednesday, amid a struggle to deal with large amounts of radioactive water at the site.

The president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, was admitted to hospital on Tuesday evening, the company said on Wednesday.

TEPCO presiden

Workers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant plan to spray its grounds with a special resin to prevent further radioactivity being released, a nuclear safety agency official said on Wedne

Inspired by a desire to help victims of Japan's deadly earthquake, a group of bloggers and writers have come together through the Internet to create a book of stories about the disaster.

The result,

Japan's health ministry has asked water purification plants nationwide to stop taking in rainwater and cover pools with tarpaulins to shield them from radiation from a crippled nuclear plant.

The number of confirmed dead and people listed as missing from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan's northeast coast topped 28,000 on Monday, the National Police Agency said.

The agency

Japanese emergency crews have battled to stabilise the crippled Fukushima No 1 atomic power plant that has sparked global fears of a large-scale radiation disaster.

Japan has detected abnormal levels of radioactivity in milk and spinach in areas near a stricken nuclear plant, but the foods pose no immediate threat to humans, government spokesman Yukio Edano said on Saturday.