A nuclear reactor in central Japan leaked radioactive water in the second accident at the power plant in three days, the reactor operator said Saturday.
During an inspection on Friday, coolant water was found spilling directly from a system storing equipment to operate rods that control the nuclear reactor's output at the power plant in Hamaoka, 180 kilometers (110 miles) southwest of Tokyo.
On Wednesday, a steel pipe at the reactor cracked and leaked radioactive steam in a pressure-injection system.
"We are still trying to locate the exact point from where coolant water is dripping," said Kenji Nakashima, a spokesman for the plant operated by Chubu Electric Power Co.
It was the second radioactive water spill at the 540,000-kilowatt reactor, with the first accident occurring in 1988, he added.
"It is not that water spills never occur in the reactor but the accident is taken seriously because it immediately followed the rupture of the pipe," Nakashima said.
Hamaoka said the radioactive water was leaking at a rate of 60 milliliters an hour but there was no fear of the leakage affecting the environment outside the plant.
Radioactivity from the leakage was estimated at about 323 becquerels per cubic centimeter, almost the same level as the coolant water used in the reactor, he said.
The reactor was manually shut down after Wednesday's steam leakage and none of the radioactive material had escaped from the facility, the power company said.
The pipe carried steam from the reactor's pressure injection system to a heat exchanger. The system is geared to cool the reactor core in the event the regular cooling system shuts down -- TOKYO, (AFP)
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