Contaminated water leaking from Fukushima nuclear plant

Contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the most serious setback to the clean-up of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

The storage tank breach of about 300 tons of water is separate from contaminated water leaks reported in recent weeks, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said yesterday.

The latest leak, which is continuing, is so contaminated that a person standing 50 centimetres (1.6 feet) away would, within an hour, receive a radiation dose five times the average annual global limit for nuclear workers. After 10 hours, a worker in that proximity to the leak would develop radiation sickness with symptoms including nausea and a drop in white blood cells.