TOKYO: Japan turned down a US offer to provide technical support for cooling fuel rods at nuclear reactors hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami, a newspaper reported on Friday.
The United States made the offer immediately after the disaster caused
damage to Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, quoting a senior official of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.
According to the unnamed senior official, US support was based on
dismantling the troubled reactors run by Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) some 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo, the mass circulation daily said.
The government and TEPCO, both having first thought the cooling system could be restored by themselves, rejected the offer as they believed "it was too early to take," Yomiuri said.
Some ruling party and government officials pointed that the country could have avoided the current crisis if Prime Minister Naoto Kan's government had accepted the offer, it said.
On Thursday, the Japanese military used trucks and helicopters to dump tonnes of water onto the plant in efforts to douse fuel rods and prevent a disastrous radiation release.
The 9.0 magnitude quake, the biggest on record to strike Japan, hit the eastern coast of the Tohoku region, north of the capital, Friday last week, leaving 15,000 dead or missing.
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