New leak at crippled Fukushima nuclear plant: TEPCO

news.yahoo.com Tokyo (AFP) - Another leak of radioactive water has been found at Fukushima, the plant's Japanese operator said Thursday, the latest setback for the troubled clean-up at the broken nuclear power station. Tokyo Electric Power said highly-polluted water, which spilled out of a storage tank as it was being filled, may have made its way out to the Pacific Ocean. The utility, whose efforts to fix the mess at Fukushima have been derided as sloppy, said 430 litres (110 US gallons) with a radioactive load of up to 580,000 becquerels per litre, had leaked from one of the 450-tonne tanks because of recent typhoon-brought heavy rainfall. A spokesman said it was possible "contaminated water may well have flowed into the sea." The tank holds water filtered to remove caesium but still containing strontium, an element that accumulates in bones and can cause cancer, if consumed. View gallery."Graphic locating the site of a water storage tank at … Graphic locating the site of a water storage tank at the Fukushima nuclear plant, where a new leak h … The contamination level of the water in the new leak compares with government limits of 100 becquerels per kilogramme in food and 10 becquerels per litre in drinking water. TEPCO has found increasing difficulty in dealing with waste water at the plant, which ran out of control following a huge earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The company poured thousands of tonnes of water onto runaway reactors to tame them and continues to douse them to keep them cool. to read more click here: news.yahoo.com