TOKYO — The operator of Japan’s damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant is building a huge tent to cover one of the worst-hit reactors.

Officials hope the cover will keep leaked radioactive materials from spreading, prevent rainwater seepage and offer a barrier from further leaks.

The tent is being erected to provide a temporary replacement for the No. 1 reactor’s outer housing shell, which was destroyed in an explosion caused by high pressure the day after Japan’s deadly earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

A spokesman for the power utility Koji Watanabe said Friday that construction began this week.

In the five months since a devastating earthquake struck, Japanese police say they've received $78 million in missing cash and valuables that citizens have found in the rubble and promptly turned in.

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Some wallets and safes were most likely pocketed, but the scale of honesty in the wake of disaster is still striking.

Officials on Aug. 12 found compost in a kindergarten yard in Tokamachi city, Niigata prefecture containing radioactive cesium measuring 27,000 becquerels per kilogram, Kenichiro Kasuga, an official at the city’s disaster prevention department, said by phone.

Under Japanese law, waste measuring over 8,000 becquerels per kilogram must be treated as radioactive waste and can’t be buried in a landfill.

Evidence has been released Friday showing new radiation is leaking at Fukushima's nuclear power plant as its operator TEPCO disclosed more video recordings of its in-house teleconferences in the early phase of the 2011 catastrophe, showing employees' tense communications before radioactive water was released into the sea. The UN calling for TEPCO and the government to observe health rights earlier this week has prompted an urgent international petition to evacuate radiated children.

“We have confirmed a worst situation — Water containing extremely high levels of radiation flowing into sea,” Masao Yoshida, then manager of the plant, says in new video footage of early days of the Fukushima catastrophe.

President of The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research Arjun Makhijani told NBC News TODAY that the Japanese government has not been forthcoming about the amount of radiation leaking from the Fukushima nuclear plant and that new radiation is being released.

As many as 300,000 Japanese children are being radiated daily. The radiation level is increasing.

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