Another radioactive leak discovered at Fukushima nuclear plant as storage tank overflows allowing toxic water to flow into Pacific

Leak causes yet more problems for under fire Tokyo Electric Power Company

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The Independent Online

A storage tank at Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear plant has overflowed, allowing hundreds of litres of toxic water to flow into the Pacific Ocean.

Workers for the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) discovered the latest radioactive leak during a routine patrol of the site, with the oft-criticised estimating that around 430 litres of the water had already escaped. Official Masayuki Ono said he could not deny that water containing highly radioactive doses of strontium may have flowed down a drain that leads directly into the Pacific Ocean.

The amount of radioactive water involved in the new leak is small compared to the thousands of tons that have escaped since a massive earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011. It is, however, the latest in a long line of errors Tepco has made as it struggles to manage a seemingly endless flow of contaminated water on the site.

The tank in question is one of about 1,000 erected on the grounds around the plant to hold water used to cool the melted nuclear fuel in the broken reactors. TEPCO said the water then spilled out of a concrete barrier surrounding the tank and believed that most of it reached the sea via a ditch next to the river.

The new leak will add to public concern and criticism of TEPCO and the government for their handling of the Fukushima  nuclear crisis.

In August, the utility reported a 300-ton leak from another storage tank, one of a string of leaks in recent months. That came after the utility and the government acknowledged that contaminated groundwater was seeping into ocean at a rate of 300 tons a day for some time.

TEPCO spokesman Masayuki Ono told an urgent news conference that the overflow occurred at a 450-ton tank without a water gauge and standing on an unlevel ground, slightly tilting toward the sea.










