Tuesday, April 5, 2011 © Copyright 2013 TOKYO -- Workers stopped
a highly radioactive leak into the Pacific off Japan's flooded
nuclear complex Wednesday, but with the plant far from
stabilized, engineers prepared an injection of nitrogen to deter
any new hydrogen explosions. Nitrogen can prevent highly
combustible hydrogen from exploding -- as it did three times at
the compound in the early days of the crisis, set in motion
March 11 when cooling systems were crippled by Japan's
9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami. Nuclear officials said
there was no immediate threat of more explosions, and but the
nitrogen plans were an indication of the serious remaining
challenges in stabilizing reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi
plant and halting the coastal radiation leaks that have cast a
shadow on northeastern Japanese fisheries. Nitrogen normally is
present inside the containment that surrounds the reactor core.
Technicians will start pumping more in as early as Wednesday
evening, said Junichi Matsumoto, a spokesman