Officials in Japan say the radioactivity in water at a hobbled nuclear plant is testing 10 million times higher than normal.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita told reporters Sunday that leaked water in Unit 2 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant measured at 1,000 millisieverts per hour. That''s 10 million times higher than the radioactivity level when the reactor is operating normally.

Japanese engineers struggled on Sunday to pump radioactive water from a crippled nuclear power station while the United Nations'' chief nuclear inspector said the crisis triggered by this month''s earthquake and tsunami was far from over.

Radiation levels in the sea off the Fukushima Daiichi plant rose on Sunday to 1,850 times normal just over two weeks after
the disaster struck, from 1,250 on Saturday, Japan''s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

The radiation particles will be dispersed and diluted, however, posing no threat to marine life or food safety, a senior agency official said.

"There is no need to worry about health risks," Hidehiko Nishiyama said.

The crisis at the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, has overshadowed a relief and recovery effort from the magnitude 9.0 quake and the huge tsunami it triggered on March 11 that left more than 27,100 people dead or missing in northeast Japan.

Yukiya Amano, the director general of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), cautioned that Japan''s nuclear emergency could go on for weeks, if not months more.

The Japanese government estimated last week the material damage from the March 11 catastrophe could top $300 billion, making it the world''s costliest natural disaster.

In addition, power cuts have disrupted production while the drawn-out battle to prevent a meltdown at the 40-year-old plant has hurt consumer confidence and spread contamination fears well beyond Japan.

Radioactive water

Engineers trying to stabilise the plant have to pump out radioactive water found in buildings housing three of the six reactors.

On Thursday, three workers were taken to hospital from reactor No. 3 after stepping in water with radiation levels 10,000 times higher than usually found in a reactor. That raised fear the core''s container could be damaged.

An official from plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) told a news conference experts still had to determine where to put some of the contaminated water while engineers were still trying to fully restore the plant''s power.

Two of the plant''s reactors are now seen as safe but the other four are volatile, occasionally emitting steam and smoke.

However, the nuclear safety agency said on Saturday that temperature and pressure in all reactors had stabilised.

The government has said the situation was nowhere near to being resolved, although it was not deteriorating.

"We are preventing the situation from worsening," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference on Saturday. "But there is still no room for complacency."