TEPCO Unveils New Leak of Tainted Water

Tokyo, Oct. 2 (Jiji Press)--Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501> said Wednesday night that highly radioactive water has leaked from another storage tank at its crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The amount of the leaked water is uncertain, but 200,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive materials, such as strontium-90, were detected in water inside the dikes surrounding the area that contains a number of tanks including the leaky one, according to TEPCO officials. At around 8:05 p.m. (11:05 a.m. GMT), plant workers found water leaking from the seam between the top and side of the tank, into which they tried to transfer water accumulated inside the dikes, the officials said. Part of the water leaked out of the dikes and may have flowed into the ocean through a ditch, the officials said. The storage tank area is located several hundred meters southwest of the No. 4 reactor building at the nuclear power plant damaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The tank in question, with a capacity of 450 tons, is the same type as the tank where some 300 tons of tainted water were found to have leaked in August. It stores water from which radioactive cesium has been removed, according to the officials. END