© REUTERS/ Air Photo ServiceFukushima Nuclear Power Plant
Japan's nuclear watchdog said a leak of highly radioactive water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant could be the beginning of a new disaster - a series of leaks of contaminated water from storage tanks.
The plant operator has built hundreds of steel tanks to store massive amounts of radioactive water coming from three melted reactors, as well as underground water running into reactor and turbine basements.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. says about 300 tons (300,000 liters, 80,000 gallons) of contaminated water leaked from one of the tanks, possibly through a seam. The leak is the fifth, and the worst, since last year involving tanks of the same design at the wrecked Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, raising concerns that contaminated water could begin leaking from storage tanks one after another.
"That's what we fear the most. We must remain alert. We should assume that what has happened once could happen again, and prepare for more," Nuclear Regulation Authority Chairman Shunichi Tanaka told a news conference. "We are in a situation where there is no time to waste."
The watchdog also proposed at a weekly meeting Wednesday to raise the rating of the seriousness of the leak to level 3, a "serious incident," from level 1, "an anomaly," on an International Nuclear and Radiological event scale from 0 to 7.
The watchdog urged TEPCO to step up monitoring for leaks and take precautionary measures.
Comment: In the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, it was mentioned that no-one claimed responsibility for the attack. Another indication based on past experience that this was a false flag operation.