TOKYO -- High levels of potentially hazardous radioactive substances that leaked from Japan's second oldest nuclear power plant have been detected in the seabed of nearby Urazoko Bay, the Japanese government said today.
Sources said fish caught in the area were immediately withdrawn from Japanese markets for fear they were contaminated by radioactive waste from the seaside Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Fukui province, 225 miles west of Tokyo.
At a hastily arranged pore-dawn press conference, government energy officials said the levels of radioactive cobalt-60 and manganese 54 found in the seabed near the plant was 10 times above the "natural" level.
Both government and plant officials insisted, however, that the level of contamination was not harmful to humans or to the local fishing products.
