TOKYO – China said on Friday it was concerned at Japan pump ing radioactive water into the sea from its crippled nuclear power plant, reflecting growing international unease at the month-long crisis triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami.
China will “closely” monitor Japan’s actions to regain control of the plant, the foreign ministry said, demanding Tokyo provide swift and accurate information on the crisis which began on March 11 when a magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami struck. The comments came as a Chinese quality watchdog said it had detected 10 cases of ships, aircraft or cargo arriving from Japan with higher than normal levels of radiation since mid-March.
While Japan struggles to regain control of the nuclear plant in the worst crisis since Chernobyl, it also faced calls to revive its economy, rocked by the triple disaster, to prevent a knock-on impact on the global economy. G20 finance leaders will ask Tokyo for a plan to resuscitate its economy as they see the fallout from the earthquake a risk to global growth, Takatoshi Kato, a former IMF deputy managing director, told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
The tsunami left 28,000 people dead or missing, damaged six nuclear reactors north of Tokyo and left Japan’s northeast coast a splintered wreck. The world’s third largest economy is now in a “severe condition”, the Japanese government said on Friday. A major 7.1 aftershock on Thursday night rocked Japan’s east coast killing three people, injuring 141 others, leaving four million homes without power and prompting a brief evacuation of workers from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said there had been no damage to its plant, which until two days ago was leaking highly radioactive water into the sea.
