Japan to start cleaning nuclear runoff water

TOKYO — Emergency crews at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant Friday prepared to start decontaminating more than 100,000 tonnes of highly radioactive water from three months of reactor cooling operations.Embattled operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said the system, which employs US and French technology, would go fully operational by the evening after a water leak during a test run the previous night had been fixed.The operation kicks off months after a 9.0 magnitude quake triggered a tsunami that smashed into the plant. The wave knocked out reactor cooling systems, which sparked meltdowns, explosions and radiation leaks.The world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986 has caused radioactive material to spew into the air, ground and sea and forced the evacuation of 80,000 people in a 20-kilometre (12-mile) radius.Japan's government has said it will soon evacuate more households near radiation "hot-spots" outside that zone, especially pregnant women and children, without specifying when and from where people would be asked to move.Inside the charred plant, workers have pumped water into reactor cores and fuel rod pools, leaving more than 100,000 tonnes of contaminated water in basements, drains and ditches, some of which has leaked into the ocean.With little space left for more water, and the rainy season threatening to add to the volume, TEPCO is racing against time to start the decontamination system and prevent new leaks or emergency dumps into the Pacific Ocean.The system is designed to remove caesium and other radioactive materials as well as oil and sea salt from about 1,200 tonnes of water a day, using equipment from France's Areva group and Kurion Inc of the United States.The water must be decontaminated before it can be stored or recycled through the reactors. Removing the highly radioactive water would then allow workers to start longer-term repair work to the cooling systems.The spill on Thursday night was blamed on human error, not a technical defect, a TEPCO official told a press

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