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Crack in concrete called source of radioactive water leaking into sea By the CNN Wire Staff April 2, 2011 -- Updated 0719 GMT (1519 HKT) Tokyo (CNN) -- Highly radioactive water from Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is leaking into the Pacific Ocean from a cracked concrete sump near the No. 2 reactor, an official with the plant's owner said Saturday. Water from the two-meter deep, concrete-lined basin could be seen escaping into the sea through a roughly 20-cm (8-inch) crack, an official the Tokyo Electric Power Company told reporters Saturday afternoon. But the company could not explain...

Highly radioactive water is leaking directly into the sea from a damaged pit near a crippled reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Japanese safety officials said Saturday, the latest setback in the increasingly difficult bid to regain control of the reactors. Although higher levels of radiation have been detected in the ocean water near the plant in recent days, the breach discovered Saturday is the first identified direct leak of such high levels of radiation into the sea. The leak, found at a maintenance pit near the plant’s No. 2 reactor, is a fresh reminder of the dangerous side...