According to the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), this leak was found on Monday which was reported by one of the employees at the plant. It was expected that around 300 tons of highly radioactive water leaked from the plant.
Due to the tsunami, cooling systems present in the reactors were totally destroyed and three of these reactors melted down. The plant, which was almost destructed in 2011 tsunami, has experienced several water leakage and other problems like power failures, but this time the leakage is a bit more.
More than 100 water tanks were built to store contaminated water after the disaster. Some of them have experienced several leaks since 2012 but not on this scale. Moreover, this is the first time when Japan has declared such kind of event since the earthquake and tsunami hit the plant in 2011.
As per the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (Ines), a scale used for measuring the nuclear events, this leakage event is a lower level incident which can even be considered as level one incident, officials said.
Kyodo news agency estimated that one puddle of contaminated water emits 100 millisieverts of radiation in one hour. Further monitoring done by Tepco showed that 100 millisieverts of radiation in one hour are equal to the limit of radioactive exposure which is accumulated over a period of five years for nuclear workers.
This can also be inferred in other sense that this radiation level which was emitted by the leaked water is enough to give someone a five year dose of radiation in one hour.
Observations done by the officials state that there are no major changes in the radiation level outside the plant. Tepco has been instructed to strictly monitor the surrounding environment and retrieve the contaminated soil for further investigation.
By Ruchi Singh
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com