Latest leak at Fukushima nuclear plant prompts reprimand

Japan Fukushima web

Regulators with Japan’s Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRA) told the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) that the company needed to improve its management of radioactive water.

According to GlobalPost, regulators criticized TEPCO for “rudimentary mistakes” that resulted in several leaks of contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The president of the utility has reportedly been summoned to the NRA to discuss the matter.

The most recent incident happened Oct. 3 when 430 liters of radioactive water overflowed from a storage tank, with some of the water leaking into the Pacific Ocean. Reportedly, workers had tried to inject more water into the tank not realizing that it was nearly full. The tank did not have a water-level indicator and was set up on unlevel ground, which TEPCO workers were aware of, the article said. Previously, another tank had been leaking more than 300 tons of water a day into reactor buildings and the ocean, and it was mixing with water used to keep the reactors cool.

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