Water Leak at Japan Nuclear Plant

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Monday July 24 12:44 PM ET
Water Leak at Japan Nuclear Plant 
TOKYO (AP) - Japan's largest power company on Monday found 
radioactive water leaking from a nuclear reactor that was shut down 
to check for an oil leak, days after an earthquake prompted them to 
turn off another reactor at the plant. 
The leak at the Fukushima No. 1 plant in northern Japan caused no 
injuries and the water did not escape from the facility, Tokyo 
Electric Power Co. spokesman Yoshimi Hitosugi said. 
Plant workers found 39 gallons of radioactive water that had leaked 
near the plant's No. 2 reactor late Sunday, Hitosugi said. The 
discovery came an hour after the reactor was manually shut down 
because of an oil leak. 
``No one was injured and nothing radioactive leaked outside the 
plant,'' Hitosugi said. 
The radioactive water leaked from a joint in a pipe linked to the 
hydraulic pressure system for controlling rods, utility official 
Kazuyoshi Takahara said. Officials were investigating whether the 
fissure that caused the oil leak resulted from an earthquake, 
Takahara said. 
The six-reactor plant is in Okuma, a town of 10,900 on the Pacific 
coast in Fukushima state, 150 miles northeast of Tokyo. 
On Friday, the No. 6 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant was shut 
down after a 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of eastern 
and a leak of waste gas was detected in a tank where steam used to 
power the turbines was turned back into water. No radiation leak was 
reported. 
Japan, a resource-poor nation which relies on nuclear power for a 
third of its electricity, had its faith in the industry shaken last 
year after a deadly accident at a fuel-processing plant northeast of 
Tokyo. 
The nuclear accident killed two workers and injured another 
seriously. Dozens of people are believed to have been exposed to less 
harmful radiation in that accident, which set off an uncontrolled 
atomic reaction. 

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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
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