TEPCO to move radioactive water from No.3 reactor
The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it will start transferring highly radioactive water from the No.3 reactor building to a temporary storage facility as early as Tuesday.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, estimates that there is about 22,000 tons of highly radioactive water in the reactor’s turbine building and in a connecting tunnel.
The utility says the water in the basement of the turbine building was about 1.4 meters high as of Monday morning, a rise of more than 20 centimeters over the past 2 weeks. Part of the water leaked into the sea last week.
TEPCO says it will move about 4,000 tons of the contaminated water to the waste processing facility. The pace of the transfer will be 10 tons per hour.
The company says it took steps to make the waste facility more watertight, and received approval from the government’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
Monday, May 16, 2011 19:49 +0900 (JST)