Japanese emergency teams are using fresh water instead of sea water to try to cool reactors at Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant where meltdown is feared, the UN atomic watchdog said Saturday. They had switched to using fresh water at the Fukushima nuclear power facility because it was less corrosive than sea water, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.
"The IAEA has been informed by Japanese authorities that fresh water is now being used in place of sea water to cool the reactor pressure vessels at units 1, 2 and 3 at the Fukushima nuclear plant," it said. Two weeks after the 9.0-magnitude March 11 quake and subsequent tsunami seriously damaged the ageing nuclear plant in north-eastern Japan, rescue work is still under way to avoid a major nuclear disaster. More than 27,000 people are dead or missing after the quake and tsunami.