TOKYO ELECTRIC Power will be made to compensate farmers near its radiation-leaking nuclear power station for losses related to a widening ban on the sale of agricultural products from the area, Japan’s government has said.
In the first direct reference by a high-ranking government official to reparations by Tepco for victims of the world’s worst nuclear accident in a quarter of a century, Yukio Edano, chief cabinet secretary, said the state would “have Tepco take responsibility”.
But he added that if the company was unable to compensate people adequately, “then by law the government will step in and guarantee the claims”.
The cost of cleaning up the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, compensating victims and buying extra coal, gas and oil to make up for lost nuclear capacity is certain to be in the billions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the March 11th quake and tsunami was given as 8,450 as of Sunday night, with a further 12,931 people missing, according to the National Police Agency in Tokyo.
Japan needs to act quickly and ban food sales from areas around the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant if food there has excessive levels of radiation, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.
Tokyo widened a ban on shipments of leaf vegetables from areas around Fukushima yesterday after radiation in samples exceeded legal limits.
The health and welfare ministry said: “The food is still safe to consume but we are taking a precaution because if the situation continues, [the consequences] would be undesirable.”
Authorities added spinach and kakina, a related Japanese green vegetable, from three additional prefectures to a ban imposed on the same vegetables from Fukushima on Sunday. Sale of milk from the Fukushima area has also been restricted.
Tetsuro Fukuyama, Mr Edano’s deputy, said a sample of drinking water from the village of Iidate, at the north-western edge of a 20km radius evacuation area, showed radiation levels to be three times the legal limit. Residents were advised not to drink the water, though authorities said they would not suffer health problems if they did.
The developments came as efforts continued to bring the stricken power station under control.
Attempts by firefighters to spray water into overheated spent fuel tanks at two of the plant’s six reactors had to be suspended for several hours after dark-grey smoke was seen coming out of reactor No 3, the station’s most badly damaged unit.
Tepco and nuclear safety officials could not identify the source of the smoke, but said it subsided after about two hours and radiation levels did not rise noticeably. White steam was also seen coming out of reactor No 2.
Tepco said reactors 5 and 6 had been cooled to safe levels after a second of their shared diesel generators was repaired, allowing electrical power to be restored to internal cooling systems.
Engineers were also testing electrical systems inside reactors 1, 2 and 4 after hooking up external power lines, though they have not turned on the power.
There is no guarantee that the cooling systems will still work in holding tanks for used uranium fuel in reactors 1-4.
Supplies of food, water and other essentials are increasing nationwide, with about 118,000 emergency personnel on the ground, said Kirsten Mildren, a spokeswoman in Japan for the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011. Additional reporting: Bloomberg)