The agonising efforts to clean up the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant hit new obstacles this week. On August 21st the Nuclear Regulation Authority (nra) said that leaks of radioactive water were a level three, or "serious", incident on a scale that goes up to seven. Some help from American experts aside, Japan has been dealing with the disaster itself. Now, even Tokyo Electric Power (tepco), the plant's owner, would welcome foreign help. Tepco is under intense fire at home. It "has no sense of crisis at all", grumbled Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the nra, as the leaks worsened. Another nra commissioner questioned whether tepco's data could even be trusted. After months of denial, the firm has only just admitted that contaminated water is leaking into the Pacific. China and South Korea have both expressed concern.
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