Japan announces response to radioactive water leak

Three days after discovering a leak of contaminated water at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, on April 10, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced plans to move all of the heavily contaminated water in underground tanks to safer storage areas by June.

TEPCO is the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, where radioactive water leaks have been detected in three of the seven tanks at the plant.

In its announcement, TEPCO also said it would drain water from all three leaking tanks, plus one other tank. Two of the four tanks are currently out of service.

(Photo: Reuters)

According to TEPCO's calculations, the total amount of water released from all four tanks is up to 23,600 tons, of which about 3,000 tons of water from the fourth tank has a lower level of radiation because it has not been used to cool the reactors. All of the released water will be put by TEPCO into some existing tanks at the plant or additional tanks installed in the near future.

The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami caused a serious nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, causing radiation contamination in a large area of ​​northeastern Japan, forcing tens of thousands of people to leave their homes. Most recently, on April 7, the plant discovered a series of leaks of radioactive water after one of the systems to cool spent nuclear fuel rods stopped working two days earlier.

Speaking before a committee of the Japanese Parliament the same morning, Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshimitsu Motegi said that TEPCO should stop using underground storage tanks after completing the plan to drain the contaminated water.

Chairman of Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), Mr. Shunichi Tanaka, asked TEPCO to review the overall long-term plan to solve the problem of contaminated water so as not to affect the area outside the Fukushima No. 1 plant./.

According to (TTXVN) - VT