Fukushima leak may have run into Pacific: TEPCO

5 Apr 2012, 6:53 pm   -   Source: AAP

Water containing significant amounts of radioactive substances could have leaked into the Pacific from Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, a TEPCO spokesman admits.

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About 12 tonnes of radioactive water has leaked at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, with the facility's operator saying some may have flowed into the Pacific Ocean.

Tokyo Electric Power Company said the leak was found early on Thursday from a pipe attached to a temporary decontamination system. The water had already gone through part of the cleansing process.

After the water is used to cool the reactors it contains significant amounts of radioactive substances. It is then put into the water-processing facility so it can be recycled for use as coolant.

"Our officials confirmed that cooling water leaked at a joint in the pipes," a TEPCO spokesman told AFP, adding "it is possible that part of the water may have flowed outside the facility and poured into the ocean".

The leak has been plugged, and the utility was investigating the cause of the accident and how much, if any, water flowed into the Pacific, the spokesman said.

The accident was the latest of several leaks of radioactive water at the troubled plant, undermining the government's claim made in December that the shuttered Fukushima reactors were now under control.

In one incident last month, about 120 tonnes of radioactive water leaked at the plant's water decontamination system and about 80 litres seeped into the ocean, according to TEPCO.

The plant about 220km northeast of Tokyo was crippled by meltdowns and explosions caused by Japan's massive earthquake and tsunami in March last year.

Radiation was scattered over a large area and made its way into the sea, air and food chain in the weeks and months after the disaster.

Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes around the plant and swathes of this zone remain badly polluted. The clean-up is proceeding slowly, amid warnings that some towns could be uninhabitable for three decades.

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