Tokyo -- Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has waded deep into the effort to deal with the aftermath of the world's worst nuclear accident in a quarter century.
His government said Tuesday it would spend the equivalent of $470 million to try to tackle the alarming toxic water crisis at the country's tsunami-crippled nuclear power plant.
National authorities are stepping in as Tokyo Electric Power Company struggles to cope with an array of daunting problems at its stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The move is a gamble for Abe, who comfortably won elections last year and has so far remained popular.
Why Fukushima is worse than you think
"Today, instead of the previous stopgap countermeasures, we have put together a basic policy for countering the contaminated water issue," Abe said after a ministerial meeting Tuesday.
TEPCO has accumulated a huge volume of tainted water at the site since a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 set off meltdowns at three of the plant's reactors.
A litany of leaks
Last month, it said one of roughly 1,000 huge storage tanks at the site had leaked 300 tons of toxic water, prompting Japan's nuclear regulator to declare the situation a Level 3 serious incident, its gravest assessment since the meltdowns at the plant in 2011.
TEPCO looks for outside help to stabilize Fukushima.
Now, the regulator says it suspects more leaks from other containers after the company detected high radiation levels in some parts of the water storage system over the weekend.
TEPCO is also having difficulty managing the large quantities of groundwater that flow into and out of the area around the plant each day. In July, it admitted that radioactive groundwater was leaking into the Pacific Ocean from the site, bypassing an underground barrier built to seal in the water.
Michael Friedlander, a former nuclear plant operator and engineer, described the groundwater problem as one of the biggest long-term issues at the plant.
"It's like having a leak in your basement," he told Tuesday.
His government said Tuesday it would spend the equivalent of $470 million to try to tackle the alarming toxic water crisis at the country's tsunami-crippled nuclear power plant.
National authorities are stepping in as Tokyo Electric Power Company struggles to cope with an array of daunting problems at its stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The move is a gamble for Abe, who comfortably won elections last year and has so far remained popular.
Why Fukushima is worse than you think
"Today, instead of the previous stopgap countermeasures, we have put together a basic policy for countering the contaminated water issue," Abe said after a ministerial meeting Tuesday.
TEPCO has accumulated a huge volume of tainted water at the site since a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 set off meltdowns at three of the plant's reactors.
A litany of leaks
Last month, it said one of roughly 1,000 huge storage tanks at the site had leaked 300 tons of toxic water, prompting Japan's nuclear regulator to declare the situation a Level 3 serious incident, its gravest assessment since the meltdowns at the plant in 2011.
TEPCO looks for outside help to stabilize Fukushima.
Now, the regulator says it suspects more leaks from other containers after the company detected high radiation levels in some parts of the water storage system over the weekend.
TEPCO is also having difficulty managing the large quantities of groundwater that flow into and out of the area around the plant each day. In July, it admitted that radioactive groundwater was leaking into the Pacific Ocean from the site, bypassing an underground barrier built to seal in the water.
Michael Friedlander, a former nuclear plant operator and engineer, described the groundwater problem as one of the biggest long-term issues at the plant.
"It's like having a leak in your basement," he told Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment