Fukushima nuclear staff
© EPAStaff of Japan's nuclear regulator near storage tanks for radioactive water at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
New radioactive water leaks have been reported at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.

The operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), said on Thursday that Japanese technicians found the new leak of radioactive water in one of the storage tanks of the broken nuclear power station late on Wednesday.

TEPCO added that that contaminated water may have flown into the Pacific Ocean.
The contaminated water "went into the drain and we cannot deny the possibility of it having reached the ocean," said TEPCO official Masayuki Ono on Thursday.
TEPCO said 430 liters (100 gallons) of the toxic water had leaked from the 450-ton tank because of recent heavy rainfall.

"Workers were storing water very close to tanks' capacity because of the volume of typhoon rainfall," Ono said. "As a result, the water overflowed and leaked outside the gutter."

The incident is another setback for the troubled clean-up process at the crippled nuclear power plant.

In August, 300 tons of radioactive water was found to have leaked from a separate tank.

TEPCO has long struggled to control waste water at the plant. It has huge amounts of polluted water stored at hundreds of tanks.

Fukushima nuclear power station was damaged in a 2011 earthquake and tsunami. It has suffered nuclear meltdowns and hydrogen explosions since then.

A report released by a Japanese parliamentary panel later said the incident at the Fukushima nuclear plant was not only due to the tsunami, but also a "man-made disaster."