TEPCO, the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant, said on Thursday it may release more water with low-level radiation into the sea, media reports say.
“We would like to increase the number of tanks to accommodate the water but it will be difficult to do so indefinitely,” a spokesperson, Junichi Matsumoto, told Reuters on the reasons why it would dump the contaminated water.
The plan to dump the water may be realized as early as next March, the company added. TEPCO will reach its water storage capacity by that time but may build more storage tanks by then.
The water would only be dumped after it was filtered to reduce radiation levels.
TEPCO has already released thousands of tons of water containing low levels of radiation into the ocean, following the earthquake and tsunami in March, which damaged the Fukushima plant.
On Monday, the company said that around 45 tons of radioactive water containing elevated levels of strontium, which can cause bone cancer in humans, was leaked from a decontamination facility inside the plant. The company blamed the loss of water on a crack in a concrete barrier. Some of the contaminated water entered the ocean before plant workers blocked the crack with sandbags.
