Radioactive water was discovered outside the building that houses the reactor no. 2 and the turbine at Fukushima nuclear plant and could have leaked to the sea, announced on Monday a spokesman for operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).
“We found water accumulated in the underground wells of a trench leading to the exterior of the building, with a level of radioactivity of over 1,000 milisievert/hour”, he said.
“These wells are located approximately 60 meters from the Pacific Ocean and contaminated water may have reached the shore”, he added. “We are check to see whether that water would have been in direct contact with the sea,” he continued.
Trenches “are used for sewage and electrical cable housing. They look like tunnels”, said the TEPCO spokesman. Workers have discovered on Friday a quantity of water with an identical level of radioactivity in the basement of the machine room at reactor no. 2, but this is the first time TEPCO engineers announced the presence of polluted water outside.
The operator’s spokesman added that contaminated water was also found behind the building of reactors no. 1 and 3. “In the reactor no. 1, a level of 0.4 milisievert per hour was measured at the water’s surface, but workers could not make measurements in the reactor no. 3 because of the damage” caused by the explosion, he said.