Japan races to find tsunami dead despite radiation

Nearly a month after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake generated the tsunami along Japan's northeastern coast, more than 14,700 people are still missing. Many of those may have been washed out to sea and will never be found.

In the days just after the March 11 disaster, searchers gingerly picked through mountains of tangled debris, hoping to find survivors. Heavier machinery has since been called in, but unpredictable tides of radiation from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex have slowed progress and often forced authorities to abandon the search, especially within a 12-mile (20-kilometer) evacuation zone around the plant.

Officials now say there's not much time left to find and identify the dead, and are ramping up those efforts.

"We have to find bodies now as they are decomposing," said Ryoichi Tsunoda, a police spokesman in Fukushima prefecture, where the plant is located. "This is a race against time and against the threat of nuclear radiation."

Up to 25,000 people are believed to have been killed, of which 12,500 have been confirmed. There is expected to be some overlap in the dead and missing tolls because not all of the bodies have been identified.

Recent progress at the plant which the tsunami flooded appears to have slowed the release of radiation. Early Wednesday, technicians there plugged a crack that had been gushing contaminated water into the Pacific. Radiation levels in waters off the coast fell dramatically later in the day, though contaminated water continues to pool throughout the complex, often thwarting work there.

After notching that rare victory, technicians began pumping nitrogen into the chamber of reactor Thursday in order to reduce the risk of a hydrogen explosion.

Three hydrogen blasts rocked the complex in the days immediately following the tsunami, which knocked out vital cooling systems. An internal report from March 26 by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned such explosions could occur and recommended adding nitrogen. The gas will be injected into all three of the troubled reactors over the next six days.

Radiation in the air, soil and water in Fukushima prefecture has fallen each day since Saturday, and Tsunoda said a small team resumed the search there a day later. But the operation dramatically increased on Thursday, when 330 police and 650 soldiers fanned out, wearing white protective gear from head to toe. They are concentrating on areas between six and 12 miles (10 and 20 kilometers) from the plant - all of which are within a zone evacuated because of radiation fears; Kazinform cites China Daily.

See www.chinadaily.com.cn for full version