Japan on 'maximum alert' over nuclear crisis: Japan PM

Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Tuesday his government is in a "state of maximum alert" over the crisis at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, Jiji Press reported.

Kan told a lower house budget committee meeting that the situation "continues to be unpredictable" and that the government "will tackle the problem while in a state of maximum alert," Jiji reported.

Radiation worries have disrupted efforts to restart the cooling system of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which was battered by a huge earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that left more than 28,000 people dead or missing.

Plutonium has been detected in soil at the facility northeast of Tokyo and highly contaminated water has leaked from a reactor building, the operator said yesterday, while nearby seawater has shown high iodine readings.