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Japan mulls reactor covers in nuclear crisis

Japan was considering plans to drape shattered nuclear reactor buildings with special covers to limit radiation, and pump contaminated water into a tanker on Wednesday.

The embattled nation, reeling from the triple calamity of a massive earthquake, tsunami and a crippled atomic power plant, was also inviting foreign experts to help stabilise the overheating Fukushima station.

The United States has lent Japan robots of a model battle-tested in Iraq and Afghanistan that can crawl through, film and clear rubble in the blast-hit reactor buildings which humans can't enter because of very high radiation.

And France, which relies on nuclear power for three-quarters of its domestic energy needs, was sending an expert team from Areva, its state-run reactor maker, to assist embattled operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).

The strain of the crisis appeared to have taken a toll on TEPCO's president Masataka Shimizu, 66, who was hospitalised Tuesday evening with high blood pressure and dizziness, having not appeared in public for over two weeks.

The company has seen its share price plunge by three-quarters and faced heavy criticism, most recently over news that it ignored expert warnings on the threat of a tsunami before a giant wave crashed into the plant on March 11.

As Japan works to contain the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, an official with the nuclear safety agency said Wednesday it was time to think outside the box.

"We are in an unprecedented situation, so we need to think about different strategies, beyond what we normally think about," the official told AFP.

Japan faces a dilemma in containing the nuclear crisis: it must pump water into reactors to stop them from overheating, even as highly radioactive runoff leaks out, halting crucial repair work and threatening the environment.

23:36 | |

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