Nuclear plant leak blamed on 'procedure failure'

Failure to follow procedure was to blame for the latest leak from a nuclear power station damaged in this week’s earthquake in north-western Japan, a top government official said today.

Tokyo Electric Power Company said radioactive material was leaking from an exhaust vent as late as Wednesday night, two days after the plant suffered a near-direct hit by Monday’s quake, which killed 10 people and injured more than 1,000.

TEPCO announced today that a check the previous night at the plant, 135 miles north-west of Tokyo, confirmed the vent leak had stopped.

The embattled operator of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant – the world’s largest in terms of capacity – had already announced a barrage of leaks and malfunctions, and said the latest might have been caused by workers failing to follow rules and turn off a fan inside the building.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said the trade and industry minister would issue a further “stern warning” to TEPCO.

“This is an error of not implementing the manual,” Shiozaki said when questioned about the latest exhaust vent leak.

TEPCO and nuclear regulators have stressed the amounts of radioactivity leaked were extremely low and posed no threat to the environment or local residents. The announcement of the leak came a day after officials issued similar assurances about other damage at the plant – including a fire, burst pipes and waste spillage.

The seven reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant shut down automatically when the quake hit, and the plant has been ordered closed indefinitely while inspections and repairs are carried out to assure it can be restarted safely.