On Saturday the Tokyo Electric Power Co. announced that a crack about 20 cm was discovered in the pit that keeps the electric cable of Nuclear Reactor No. 2 of the power plant and the water contained there was confirmed to have flown into the Pacific.

Radioactive substance was recently detected in the soil of Iidate Son, Fukushima Prefecture about 40 km away northwest of the power plant while inhabitants had already been asked to evacuate in the areas within the radius of 30 km from the power plant after the occurrence of the quake.

The Japanese Tokyo Shimbun said this went beyond the evacuation level set by the IAEA.

It was reported that there rang out voices urging the expansion of the radius of evacuation.

The director general of the IAEA predicted at a press conference on Friday that the crisis assumed protracted nature, saying that it would take longer than people thought to bring the situation at the power plant under control.

Nuclear power experts are of the view that it will take more than 20 years to close the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant as it is larger than the Three Mile Nuclear Power Plant of the U.S.

Meanwhile, the Japan National Police Agency announced that the death toll caused by the quake and the ensuing tsunami increased to 12,087 and the number of those unaccounted for to 15,552 as of 22:00 on Sunday.