300 tons of highly radioactive water leak from Fukushima plant

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said Tuesday that at least 300 tons of highly radioactive water leaked from one of the storage tanks at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the worst leakage yet from the tanks. TEPCO found the leakage on Monday as water level in one of the tanks has lowered by about 2.9 meters. The 11-meter-high tank contained about 1,000 tons of water before and an estimated 300 tons of water is thought to have leaked. The company detected about 80 million becquerels per liter of radioactive substances emitting beta ray, such as strontium-90. Masayuki Ono, spokesman of TEPCO, told a press conference Tuesday that the leakage is continuing and leaked water has most likely seeped into ground but not run into the sea. TEPCO is now trying to prevent the spread of radioactive water and remove the contaminated soil. However, they have not checked yet whether there are still leakage in other tanks, said Ono. The plant has struggled with a series of radioactive water leaks and power failures since March 2011 when an earthquake- triggered tsunami destroyed its power and cooling systems, causing multiple meltdowns. The storage tanks were built around the plant to store radioactive water leaked from the melted reactors.