main benchmark closed up by about the same amount. shares of tokyo electric power rose early on friday but then they struggled to maintain their gains. the company s stock was down nearly 4% by the close of trade. now the every raise came up after it s considering pumping public money into the trouble l controlling stake. in the three weeks since the earthquake more than 80% of tepco s market value has been wiped out. nina? well, they still can t find the leak that s contaminating the nearby pacific ocean. the level of radio activity is
europe who s been doing these great compilations of what s happening every second and all the little stories going on in japan. one is this worry about radiation leaking into the ground water and the second, this idea that the u.s. may send in some marines to help with the nuclear plant. reporter: well, on the ground water issue, yes. this is the first time we ve talked a lot about the radiation levels spiking in the sea water. we ve talked about it being in soil samples along the surface. today, they announced there was some radio activity in the ground water for the first time. exactly how much is still a little bit unclear. they originally said it was about 10,000 times the normal level, then backed off saying the calculations might be wrong. they say it s not affecting drinking water. it s not near any wells, streams that would feed water treatment facilities. they say it s not that big an issue. i think the point to remember in
supply, if japan needs more that takes from somewhere else. today, that there are some radioactivity measurements, most likely as a matter of fact, absolutely coming from japan. these levels are very, very low. if you re old enough you remember in the 50s and 60s all are concerned about fallout from nuclear weapons testing. and this is the same nature and we have plenty of experience of what low levels of radiation floating around the atmosphere mean to the food supply. in the case of the fish, they have halted the export of fish from japan for the time being. but even the levels that we have seen, though fish do take up water and concentrate some of that radio activity, the levels are still extremely low, and that s the case with the vegetables and the water as well. they have work to do to clean those up so they can make those
there? i understand the contamination is fairly localized out perhaps maybe 300 yards from the plant, it s not floating out into the ocean not a mile, is what you re saying? no. i have not seen any numbers that are worse than 300 yards. but it s important, because it will be flushed out into the ocean. it will be diluted into the ocean. the levels even levels there now that have been identified and in fact, there was a report today that they were less than they ve been over the last couple of days, are significant enough and they have the proper radio activity in them, if you will, that we know it s coming from the plant and it s coming probably through some drain system. they re investigate that. they found some drain systems contaminated and trying to seal those off. tom, as we look at the drainage systems, we re seeing a lot of the leakage. talking about the effect on the sea life. a major input to the food supply in japan but also that ripple effect for the world s food
there has been an increase in radio activity in the water there but this time by four times the safety level. now, that i has actually caused an evacuation of the plant yet again. workers are able to only go in for 15 minutes at a time to solve the problems and get the control room back online, making it a more protracted process especially when they don t know what the true levels really are. the government isn t exactly entirely sure what exactly the situation is and makes the job even more difficult for them to get the reactors certainly contained and eventually the cooling systems back online and the situation back to normal. i was speaking to a nuclear safety agency official earlier on today and he was telling me that hundreds of tons are water are now being pumped into the four trillioned nuclear reactors and at some point the highly radio active water has to be released into the environment. it has to go some where and that is going to cause a greater contamination scare. partic