A worker from a water supply department walks Monday by water faucets set up for survivors at a shelter in the devastated town of Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, Monday. The March 11 quake off Japan’s northeast coast triggered a tsunami that barreled onshore and disabled the Fukushima nuclear complex. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)By SHINO YUASA
Associated Press
TOKYO – Workers have discovered new pools of radioactive water leaking from Japan’s crippled nuclear complex that officials believe are behind soaring levels of radiation spreading to soil and seawater.
Crews also detected plutonium – a key ingredient in nuclear weapons – in the soil outside the complex, though officials insisted Monday the finding posed no threat to public health.
Plutonium is present in the fuel at the complex, which has been leaking radiation for more than two weeks, so experts had expected to find traces once crews began searching for evidence of it this week.