Japan’s government: leaking nuclear plant must eventually be closed
Posted Mar 20, 2011 05:43:14 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TOKYO — Japan’s top government spokesman says the country’s tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant must eventually be scrapped.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano’s comment Sunday was the first word from the government that the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex will have to be closed once its overheating reactors are brought under control.
Closing the plant is inevitable, since the seawater that emergency crews are using to cool the reactors is corrosive, rendering key parts of the complex unusable.
Edano says the plant will be in no condition to be restarted.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Japan continues to rise in the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.
Japan’s police agency says more than eight-thousand people are now confirmed dead and more than 12-thousand are missing.
It says the number of bodies collected so far stands at 8,133, while 12,272 people are listed as missing.
The toll has been rising steadily as searchers find more bodies in the wasteland left behind by the 9.0-magnitude quake and the massive tsunami it unleashed.
The number of missing is also rising as survivors and relatives contact police regarding loved ones who remain unaccounted for.
Police say a lot of bodies remain unidentified and that many of them may eventually be matched to names on the missing list.
