抖阴ap

TOKYO — Japan is increasingly turning to other countries for help as it struggles to stabilize its tsunami-stricken nuclear plant and stop radiation leaks that are complicating efforts to recover the bodies of some of the thousands swept away by the towering wave.

French, American and international experts — even a robot — are either in Japan or on their way, and French President Nicholas Sarkozy visited Tokyo on Thursday to meet with the prime minister and show solidarity.

Workers are racing to find the source of contaminated water that has been pooling in the Fukushima Dai ichi nuclear plant since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The leaks have often forced workers to flee the plant, preventing them from restarting important cooling systems.

“The amount of water is enormous, and we need any wisdom available,” said nuclear safety agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama.

Experts from French nuclear giant Areva, which supplied fuel to the plant, are helping figure out how to dispose of the contaminated water that has begun leaking into the ground and the sea.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials also said they expect to use a remote-controlled robot sent by the U.S. within a few days to evaluate areas with high radiation. They are also setting up a panel of Japanese and American nuclear experts and U.S. military personnel to address the crisis.

A TEPCO spokesman said Thursday that radioactive contamination in groundwater nearly 50 feet under one of six reactors had been measured at 10,000 times the government standard for water at the plant.

TEPCO did not immediately explain the health risks if that water were to get into the environment or say whether that was a possibility, although spokesman Naoyuki Matsumo said the drinking-water supply has not been affected. Still, elevated levels of iodine-131, a radioactive substance that decays quickly, were another sign that radiation continues to leak at the plant.

Some frustrated evacuees close to the plant had begun trickling back to gather belongings and check on their homes, but officials in Fukushima prefecture posted warnings at evacuation centers telling them not to go back for any reason.

Today, the government said it planned more tests on a cow slaughtered for beef that had very slightly elevated levels of cesium, another radioactive particle. Officials stressed that the meat was never put on the market. Contamination has already been found in vegetables and raw milk near the plant.

The radiation has forced police officers trying to recover the dead from the evacuation zone to don white hazmat suits and radiation monitors. Officials think more than 19,000 people died, but so far only about 11,000 bodies have been found.