The chief Cabinet secretary of Japan on March 26 told a press conference that radioactive materials 1 250 times the limit level were detected in seawater near the above-said power plant recently. This means the leakage has gone beyond the annual limit level.

As regards this, experts are of the view that nuclear fuel contained in cooling water might have come through the pipes that connect reactors after being damaged inside nuclear reactors.

The air and soil near the power plant were seriously contaminated with radioactive materials. As a result, the amount of radioactive substance 1.4 times the normal level of a year was detected in a single day in the area 30 km from the plant.

The Austrian Meteorological authorities made public the observation results that the amount of cesium-137 leaked from the above-said power plant in 3-4 days after the accident at the power plant was equivalent to 20-50 percent of what leaked from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in ten days after the accident there.

The radioactive substance that leaked from Japan is steadily spreading to other countries and regions, raising a global issue.

A small amount of radioactive substance is continuously detected in the air over the northeastern part of Heilongjiang Province of China and a very small amount of it has been detected in the area of Kangwon Province of south Korea since March 23.

The Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety on March 25 said that radioactive substance believed to have leaked from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant was found in Vienna.

Meanwhile, the National Police Agency of Japan announced that the death toll due to the killer quake and the ensuing tsunami increased to 10 489 and that of unaccounted for is 16 621 as of 10:00 Sunday.

Aftershocks rock Japan continuously.

Quake of magnitude 6.5 jolted the Tohoku area on Monday. Its epicenter was in the waters off Miyagi Prefecture.

NHK said that there were 26 aftershocks of magnitude 1.5-6.5 from 17:52 of Sunday to 15:54 of Monday.