Japan expanded the evacuation zone around a crippled nuclear plant on Monday because of high levels of accumulated radiation, as a strong aftershock rattled the area one month after a quake and tsunami sparked the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.
The operator of the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex said it had stopped releasing low-level radioactive water into the sea, completing the controlled discharges that sparked concerns about contamination in neighbouring China and South Korea.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company said 10,400 tonnes of low-level radioactive water, left by the tsunami, had been pumped back into the sea in order to free up storage capacity for highly contaminated water from the reactors.
A magnitude 6.6 tremor shook buildings in Tokyo and a wide swathe of eastern Japan on Monday evening, killing one man, knocking out power to 220,000 households and causing a brief halt to water pumping to cool three damaged nuclear reactors. The epicentre of quake, which was followed by more than 25 aftershocks on Monday, was 88 km east of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex at the centre of the crisis. The biggest tremor forced engineers to postpone plans to remove highly contaminated water from one reactor, but nuclear safety officials said work had resumed by nightfall.
The government announced earlier that because of accumulated radiation contamination, it would encourage people to leave certain areas beyond
its 20 km exclusion zone around the plant. Children, pregnant women, and hospitalised patients should stay out of some areas 20-30 km from the nuclear complex, chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said.
— Reuters