Tokyo Electric Power Company, owner of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, has for the first time released figures on how much radioactive waste the facility has emitted, since being damaged by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake on March 11, 2011. Approximately 20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of nuclear energy has leaked since the disaster occurred, TEPCO said when releasing their data on August 5, 2013.
Hours after TEPCO made these figures public, a Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority (JNR) task force said that there is a “high possibility” that this waste has contaminated water along the coast of Miyagi, the prefecture to Fukushima's immediate north.
“Right now we have a state of emergency,” Shinji Kinjo, head of the JNR task force, said.
The release of TEPCO’s figures came just one day after a 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit Miyagi. No serious injuries or structural damage have been reported so far. Russia Today reports that the tremor hit in approximately the same location oas the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Fukushima in 2011 — a disaster that destroyed much of the Fukushima power plant, claimed the lives of over 15,000 people and caused over 3,200 people to go missing.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!
Share this: 






This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Tokyo Electric Power Company releases first figures on the extent of Fukushima leakage