The operator of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Wednesday admitted it had found another leak of radioactive water, the latest episode in a growing catalogue of mishaps.
Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), said one of its workers spotted drips coming from a tank used to store radioactive water at the site on Japan’s tsunami-wrecked coast.
Water was leaking at the rate of one drop every three or four seconds, the company said, adding that absorbent material had been placed under the leak and workers were trying to stem the flow.
An increasing volume of water made radioactive after being used to cool the melted cores of broken reactors has become a growing headache for TEPCO, which has hundreds of tanks on the site.
On Monday TEPCO announced it had detected radioactive cesium in groundwater samples taken from the site, reversing an earlier announcement that the water was harmless.
The company had been intending to release the groundwater into the sea but suspended the plan in the face of strong protest from local fishermen.