The Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Thursday admitted that most of nuclear fuel in No. 1 reactor of the power plant was damaged.

The TEPCO said that it is hard to find the original shape of the fuel rods due to meltdown.

It said the amount of water inside the troubled reactor was unexpectedly low -- not enough to cover the nuclear fuel -- hinting that a large part of the fuel melted after being fully exposed.

It was confirmed that water infused to cool nuclear fuel leaked from the holes formed at the bottom of the pressure vessel, leaving cooling water below 10 percent.

The radiation contamination is steadily expanding as the status of the nuclear power plant gets worse and worse.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Thursday made public the results of analysis of soil samples collected in areas around the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

According to it, several kinds of new radioactive materials such as lanthanum-140 and tellurium-129m were found other than radioactive iodine and cesium within about 60 km area from the plant. Their amounts increased toward the northwestern area from the plant just as the case with iodine and cesium.

The Tokyo Shimbun reported that the area whose soil has been contaminated is now expanding to 80 km radius beyond the off-limits zone with the amount of radiation surging to the maximum of 700 mSv per hour inside the containment vessel housing nuclear reactor No. 1.

The amount of radioactive cesium detected in tea leaves grown in Omaezaki City, Shizuoka Prefecture exceeded the maximum level recorded for the past decade.

The contamination of seawater is getting all the more serious.

It was disclosed that water contaminated with radioactive cesium-134 and cesium-137, 620,000 and 430,000 times the tolerance concentration levels each, flew to the sea through electricity cable channel near the water inlet of nuclear reactor No. 3 at the Fukushima power plant.