Nuclear Reactor

Officials at Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant late Sunday retracted their announcement that they had found puddles at the facility's No. 2 reactor containing 10 million times more radioactivity than would be found in water in a normally functioning nuclear reactor. "The number is not credible," Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita, said, according to the Associated Press. "We are very sorry. " Photos: Sifting through the remains of a home It was not immediately clear what led to the inaccurate reading of the water, or what the real level was. The company said on its website that there was a "mistake in the assessment of the measurement of iodine-134.

The panic buying of salt that swept China last week amid fears of radiation from Japan has been replaced with a new frenzy: how to get a refund. Former hoarders are now lining up at some grocery stores to ask for their money back, especially from shopkeepers who were charging as much as 10 times normal prices for the seasoning, according to Chinese news reports. "I regret it very much. I will never behave this silly anymore," a woman who was denied a refund told the West China City News in Nanjing.

On a day police miraculously rescued an elderly woman and her teenage grandson trapped for nine days under rubble, workers at a crippled Japanese nuclear plant said they succeeded in connecting two reactors to the power grid Sunday, raising the possibility it could restore vital cooling systems to the overheated facilities. But those glimmers of progress continued to compete against emerging fears about radiation contamination in Japan's food supplies. A day after officials said they discovered higher-than-normal radioactivity in batches of milk and spinach -- as well as traces of radioactive iodine in tap water in Tokyo and elsewhere -- the Associated Press reported Sunday that Japanese fava beans imported to Taiwan were found to have small amounts of radiation, according to an official of Taiwan's Atomic Energy Council.

Japanese officials are girding the nation for months of hardship, warning about ongoing rolling electricity blackouts and asking quake refugees to move elsewhere in the country, as it became clear that even temporary homes won't be quickly built. About 380,000 people were living in shelters. In Miyagi prefecture, one of the worst-hit, Gov. Yoshihiro Murai asked survivors to relocate, because replacement housing would not be ready for as long as a year, local media said. Photos: In Japan, life amid crisis "Living conditions will improve if they move away.

The Japanese economy is showing increasing signs of disarray, with the world's third-largest economy struggling with shortages of fuel, questions of food safety, and scarce electricity supplies that are forcing stores and restaurants in Tokyo to close early. The problems come as the toll of the missing and dead rose above 15,000, the National Police Agency said, according to Kyodo News Agency. The toll included nearly 5,700 deaths and 9,500 missing. Quoting police, the news agency said 380,000 people had been dislocated, and were staying in 2,000 shelters.

A series of grim developments hit a shaken Japan on Wednesday, including reports that high-level radiation may have leaked from a second damaged nuclear reactor and emergency workers being forced to temporarily abandon the crippled complex. The setbacks aggravated public fears that authorities might not be able to contain the expanding nuclear crisis. Japan's chief Cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said radioactive steam might have escaped from the containment unit of a second reactor at the Fukushima No.1 (Daiichi)

Another fire at Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex broke out early Wednesday, compounding the spree of disasters expected to take historic peacetime tolls on the nation's people and economy. The latest blaze broke out in the No. 4 reactor at the nuclear complex on the northeast coast where a plume of radiation escaped Tuesday, sending background radiation levels soaring to degrees that authorities conceded were harmful to anyone with prolonged exposure. With the confirmed dead and known missing topping 10,000 and untold thousands of others suspected to still be buried in the sodden wreckage littering the northeast shores of Honshu island, government leaders urged calm and patience as hardships persisted four days after the worst earthquake in Japan's recorded history.

As a small crew of engineers and workers struggle through the night at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant to keep the reactor core at the No. 2 reactor cooled so that more radiation does not escape through what appears to be a small breach in the reactor containment vessel, concern is shifting to a spent fuel pool on the roof of the building housing reactor No. 4, where a fire occurred Tuesday. Three explosions in the last four days have damaged the buildings housing reactors No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3, and the final explosion at No. 2 appears to have damaged the suppression pool, the part of the reactor containment vessel that quenches excess steam produced during the generation of electricity.