DHAKA: Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has a new leak of radioactive water which may have entered the Pacific Ocean, its operator says.

Workers discovered water overflowing from one of the storage tanks late on Wednesday, plant operator Tepco said.

It estimates that 430 litres of water may have leaked from the tank, reports the BBC.

The plant has experienced several leaks since being crippled by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

‘(The contaminated water) went into the drain and we cannot deny the possibility of it having reached the ocean,’ Tepco official Masayuki Ono told reporters on Thursday.

Ono added that the overflow was the result of a worker misjudging how much water could be held in the tank, which was tilting because of an uneven location, reports said.

Japan chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said in quotes carried by media that the leaks indicated that Tepco’s efforts to improve its handling of the contaminated water were not sufficient.

The government would take steps to deal with the water, Suga added.

The 2011 disaster knocked out cooling systems to the nuclear plant’s reactors, three of which melted down.

BDST: 1246 HRS, OCT 03, 2013
RoR/BSK