The last thing cleanup workers at Fukushima need is a typhoon, but a typhoon is what they're getting.

Heavy rain and winds clocking in at 100 miles per hour slammed into Japan Monday. Typhoon Man-yi caused at least two fatalities and stirred fears at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. On a typical day, workers have struggled to contain the 400 tons of contaminated water they pump out of the plant. Added rain from Typhoon Man-yi makes matters more complicated.

"The typhoon has little chance of destabilizing the reactors, but it will certainly add more water to a site already crowded with hastily assembled steel storage tanks and relatively poor oversight," Daniel Aldrich, a political scientist at Purdue University who has been following the Fukushima disaster, wrote in anOregon State University, wrote in an e-mail. "Dilution, although not the preferred method for dealing with contamination, is effective."

Either way, it's another hurdle for a two-year recovery plagued with mishaps. Tepco has recently called for support from nuclear experts around the globe, and the Japanese government recently stepped up its involvement in the cleanup. The government said earlier this month it will pay $470 million to construct an "ice wall" that would keep groundwater away from the contaminated plant.

With Tokyo winning the right to host the 2020 summer Olympic Games earlier this month, Japan is sensitive to the recovery's image abroad. Japanese officials complained when a French satirical publication published last week a cartoon linking the Olympics to the bungled cleanup at Fukushima.

"TEPCO's attempts at managing the Fukushima