Thread: New radioactive leak reported at Japan's Fukushima plant

New radioactive leak reported at Japan's Fukushima plant

Published February 20, 2014 FoxNews.com

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  Aug. 20, 2013: This photo shows the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant at Okuma in Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan.(AP)
  

The operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant says 100 metric tons of highly contaminated water have leaked out of a tank in the worst incident at the devastated facility since last August, when a string of radioactive leaks plagued the meltdown-crippled plant.

Tokyo Electric Power Company said water overflowed from a large storage tank at the site late Wednesday after a valve was left open by mistake and sent too much contaminated water into a separate holding area, Reuters reported on Thursday.

"We are taking various measures, but we apologize for worrying the public with such a leak," Masayuki Ono, a spokesman for the utility, was quoted as saying. "Water is unlikely to have reached the ocean as there is no drainage in that tank area."

The amount is small compared to the thousands of tons of radioactive water that leaked, much of it into the Pacific Ocean, after a massive earthquake and tsunami that wrecked the plant in 2011.

TEPCO said Thursday that plant workers attached a garbage bag to contain the leakage. It said the leak stopped after workers closed the valves and the water did not escape into the Pacific.

Regulators and experts have criticized TEPCO for sloppiness in its handling of the water management, including insufficient tank inspection records, lack of water gauges, as well as connecting hoses lying directly on the grass-covered ground.

Last August, the utility reported a 300-ton leak from another storage tank. That came after the utility acknowledged that contaminated groundwater was seeping into ocean at a rate of 300 tons a day.

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BBC WORLD NEWS

• Fukushima leaks radioactive water
  
  Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant leaked around 100 tonnes of highly radioactive water from a storage tank on Wednesday, plant operator Tepco says. . .

New radioactive water leak at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant

By Yoko Wakatsuki, CNN
updated 7:28 AM EST, Thu February 20, 2014


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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• TEPCO says it discovered highly contaminated water leaking from a tank
• An estimated 100 metric tons flowed over a barrier and onto the ground, it says
• The company says it has shut off the flow of water into the tank and the leak has stopped
• TEPCO has struggled to manage the vast amounts of tainted water at crippled plant

Tokyo (CNN) -- A large amount of radioactive water has leaked from a holding tank at Japan's troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, its operator said Thursday.

The leak of an estimated 100 metric tons of highly contaminated water was discovered late Wednesday, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said in a statement.

The tainted water flowed over a barrier around the tank and is being absorbed into the ground, TEPCO said. The plant has shut off the inflow of water into the tank and the leaking has stopped, it added.

The company doesn't believe that there was any leakage of the radioactive water into the nearby Pacific Ocean.

See inside Japan's damaged nuclear plant
Since the massive earthquake and tsunami that hit northeastern Japan in March 2011 set off meltdowns at three of the reactors at the nuclear plant, TEPCO has been storing the enormous volumes of water contaminated at the site in a steadily growing collection of containers.

The company has struggled to manage the vast amounts of radioactive water, with a number of leaks reported last year.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government vowed to step in to deal with the toxic water crisis at the plant that caused concern in Japan and abroad about the scale of the problem faced by TEPCO.

The leak reported Thursday is one of the largest since TEPCO reported last summer that about 300 tons of radioactive water had leaked from a tank.

CNN first learned about the latest incident on Twitter.

READ: Inside Fukushima: Decommissioning Tepco's stricken nuclear reactor
READ: Journey to the heart of Fukushima's crippled nuclear plant
READ: Fukushima's nuclear power mess: Five big questions

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/19/world/...hi-water-leak/