Japan's prime minister has pledged to step in over an "urgent" battle to stop radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant leaking into the ocean.
"Stabilising the Fukushima plant is our challenge," Shinzo Abe said at a meeting of the government's disaster task force.
"In particular, the contaminated water is an urgent issue which has generated a great deal of public attention."
Mr Abe - whose Liberal Democratic Party wants to restart the country's switched-off reactors if their safety can be assured - said the clean-up would no longer be left to plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco).
He also called for "swift and steady measures" on the toxic water issue.
Mr Abe talking to MPs in Japan's parliament Tokyo would now help foot the bill, the PM said, the first time that it has committed extra funds to deal with the growing problem.
His comments follow heavy criticism of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) and its handling of the more than two-year-old atomic crisis, the worst nuclear disaster in a generation.
The embattled utility - kept afloat by a government bailout - last month admitted for the first time that radioactive groundwater had been leaking outside the plant, confirming long-held suspicions of ocean contamination from its shattered reactors.
It has since said tainted water has been escaping into the Pacific for more than two years.
The meltdown at Fukushima was the worst nuclear accident in a generation An official at Japan's industry ministry said Tokyo estimates 300 tonnes of contaminated water from a newly discovered leak site may be seeping into the ocean.
"But we're not certain if the water is highly contaminated," he added.
The continuing troubles at Fukushima have triggered fresh worries over the plant's precarious state and Tepco's ability to deal with a growing list of problems after its reactors were swamped by a tsunami in March 2011, sending them into meltdown.
The company has also faced widespread criticism over its lack of transparency in making critical information public since the disaster.
The vast utility is already facing billions of dollars in clean-up and compensation costs over the disaster.
Tepco had previously reported rising levels of cancer-causing materials in groundwater samples at Fukushima. But until last month, the company had insisted it had halted toxic water from leaking beyond its borders.
More than 18,000 people died when the tsunami slammed into Japan's northeast coast.
While no one is officially recorded as having died as a direct result of the meltdowns at Fukushima, large areas around the plant had to be evacuated with tens of thousands of people still unable to return to their homes.
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