Leak at Fukushima

Water leak at nuclear power plant was a “minor incident”

The nuclear power plant in Fukushima

(Bild: APA/AFP/Philip FONG)

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the leak of radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant was a "minor incident" with no connection to the discharge of cooling water. It was a "small amount of water", which was initially estimated at 5,000 liters and later corrected to 1,500 liters, said IAEA chief Rafael Grossi on Thursday during a visit to Japan. The incident had "no consequences".

Last month, the nuclear power plant operator Tepco reported a leak in a part of the plant where radioactive water is treated. According to the information provided, however, there was no contamination in the surrounding area.

According to Grossi, the incident had nothing to do with the controlled discharge of cooling water from the destroyed nuclear power plant into the sea. "This incident happened in a different place, in a different part of the plant," he said.

Radioactive cooling water is treated, filtered and diluted
Since August 2023, Tepco has been discharging some of the former cooling water from the nuclear power plant into the sea. To do this, it is treated, filtered and diluted in several stages. As there is insufficient storage capacity for the radioactive water in the plant, a total of more than 1.3 million cubic meters will be discharged into the sea over decades.

Core meltdown in three of six reactors
The east coast of Japan was hit by a severe earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. As a result of the natural disaster, 18,000 people lost their lives. It also caused the cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to fail, resulting in core meltdowns in three of the six reactors. It was the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.