DHAKA: Highly radioactive water leaking from a storage tank at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant may have seeped into groundwater flowing towards the Pacific Ocean.

The plant’s operator said Thursday, reports daily Hurriyet.

It is the first time that Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) has revealed that leaks from the tank -- situated behind the plant reactor – could also be polluting the groundwater beneath the plant. TEPCO has previously admitted that radiation has seeped from the plant’s reactors into the groundwater and out to sea.

About 300 tonnes of irradiated water leaked from one of around 1,000 storage tanks last month.

TEPCO said Thursday that workers had detected radiation of 650 becquerels per litre in samples from a monitoring well dug near the damaged tank.

‘There is the possibility that the contaminated water (from the tank), diluted by rainwater and others, has seeped into soil and reached groundwater,’ TEPCO said in a press release.

The groundwater from the surrounding hillsides naturally flows beneath the plant and out to sea.

BDST: 1740 HRS, SEPT 05, 2013
RoR/RIS