TOKYO - Radioactive water leaked inside a Japanese nuclear reprocessing plant but no one was injured and the leak had no impact outside the plant, a spokesman for the plant's operator, Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd, said on Wednesday.
About 40 litres of water containing plutonium and uranium leaked inside a concrete-lined cell at the plant for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel in Rokkasho, northern Japan, on Tuesday when an employee made an error in a remote-controlled process, the spokesman said.
He added that radioactivity monitors showed there had been no effect outside the cell.
The plant began the current series of trial operations on March 31, and the accident was the first at the facility since then. Previous trials have at the facility since 2001 have also caused accidents, and the plant has yet to go into operation.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
