QUAKE 2

A Japanese national himself, Amano, at a press conference
in the Kenyan capital Nairobi insisted that the situation at
the stricken Fukushima plant remained "very serious."
"...I would say it would take more time than people
think," he added.
The nuclear safety agency meanwhile ordered TEPCO to test
samples of seawater at more locations near the plant and
analyse them for different radioactive materials.
The government "wants (the utility) to start the
operation of covering the crack in concrete as soon as
possible," Nishiyama said.
"We will also check whether there are cracks at other
reactors as soon as possible," he added.
Kan, on his part, told the personnel at the nuclear plant
that "I want you to fight with the conviction that you
absolutely cannot lose this battle".
Kan on Friday had said his government will submit a draft
supplementary budget to the parliament before the end of April
to offer relief and reconstruction support to regions hit by
the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.
He also said he will also convene a panel of experts on
April 11th to study a blueprint for reconstruction.
Meanwhile, efforts to remove radioactive water from the
buildings at the crippled nuclear power plant continued on
Saturday, with TEPCO considering using a large artificial
floating island or "megafloat" to store the tainted water.
The utility expects the artificial floating island to
store about 10,000 tonnes of water, company officials said, as
the amount of water detected in the plant reached around
13,000 tonnes.
Authorities will also inject nitrogen into the
containment vessels of the plant's reactors to help prevent
the risk of more hydrogen explosions.
TEPCO is struggling to secure enough space in tanks to
store radiation-contaminated water that has been soaking the
basements of the reactor buildings and filling up tunnel-like
underground trenches connected to them.
The plant operator also resumed transferring fresh water
from a US Navy barge to tanks at the plant, which will be
injected into the reactors to cool them down.
TEPCO has been pouring tonnes of water into the reactors
and the spent nuclear fuel pools at the plant as a stopgap
measure to cool them down, because serious damage to the fuel
rods from overheating could lead to the release of enormous
amounts of radioactive substances into environment.
Japanese and US troops meanwhile were engaged in an
intensive search of thousands of people who were still
unaccounted for following the March 11 disaster.
They focussed their search today on tsunami-hit areas of
Ishinomaki, one of the worst affected cities in Miyagi
Prefecture.
They covered an elementary school where many pupils went
missing following the tsunami, while some 50 divers from the
SDF, the Japan Coast Guard and other entities were deployed at
the nearby Kitakami River, the largest in northeastern Japan.