Workers managed to stop highly radioactive water from flowing into the Pacific Ocean from a crippled Japanese nuclear power plant early Wednesday morning by injecting a chemical compound, the plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said.
According to TEPCO, the leak was slowed on Tuesday following the injection of a mixture of sodium silicate, or liquid glass, and another hardening agent, and on Wednesday morning TEPCO said the leak
had stopped.
TEPCO said the liquid glass compound was injected into the ground beneath the leaking storage pit and stopped the leak after solidifying the earth.
The breakthrough in TEPCO's bid to bring the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, severely damaged by the March 11 quake and tsunami, under
control after the plant has been spewing radioactive materials into the air, land and sea, is a small but vital one, a spokesperson for
TEPCO said.
Prior attempts to seal the leak in a seafront pit connected to the plant's No. 2 reactor's building where a 20-centimeter crack was found to be leaking radioactive water, including trying to encase the crack in concrete, the injection of polymeric powder into the pipes leading to the pit and trying to plug the leak with bags of sawdust and newspaper, had all failed.
But while stemming the flow of radioactive water from flowing freely into the Pacific Ocean is a small victory for TEPCO amid an array of errors, misfortunes and unavoidable troubles since the beginning of the disaster, the crisis at the plant is far from over.