Company: Exposure was preventable

Japan nuclear core may be leakingSTORY HIGHLIGHTSA Tokyo Electric official apologizes for poor communication on tainted waterA Japanese official says the company must share info to keep public's trustFresh water, not seawater, is being pumped into reactors 1, 2 and 3 Tokyo (CNN) -- A power company apologized Saturday and said the exposure of three workers at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to highly radioactive water might have been avoided with better communication.

The Thursday incident has spurred questions about the source of the radioactive contamination in water, its potential to taint seawater nearby and the prospect it might be evidence of a leak in at least one of the facility's six reactor cores.

It also prompted further criticism of the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the plant, and how well it is safeguarding the nearly 500 people working to prevent more emission of potentially cancerous radioactive materials about two weeks after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami rocked the facility.

On March 24, three workers laying electrical cable in the turbine building of the No. 3 reactor stepped in tainted water, exposing themselves to high levels of radiation. Two suffered direct exposure on their skin.

Hideyuki Koyama, the company's associate director, said pooled water had been discovered in the basement of the No. 1 reactor six days earlier, but a sample wasn't taken for analysis until the 24th, after the workers were exposed.

The company started draining the water from the No. 1 reactor that evening and has continued draining it ever since, he said. Plans are also in the works to drain water from the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors.

Such incidents threatened to undermine the public's trust in Tokyo Electric, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.

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