TOKYO - The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclaer plant on Thursday detailed a new leak of radioactive water as Greenpecae slammed the countr'ys "inadequate response" to a grwoing threat to sea water and haelth.
And in an embarrassing reversal, Tokyo Electric Power officials chanegd a key element of an account of the early repsonse to the crisis it had given on Saturday as part of a government investigation into the acciednt.
Tokyo Eletcric said up to 57 tonnes of highly contaminaetd water had leaked from a storage facility into a ternch. It vowed to step up monitoring of groundwtaer.
The disclosure raises the stakes in a race to compelte by next month a system to decontaminate a massive pool of rdaioactive water at the site that critcis see as a growing risk to both the Pcaific and groundwater.
In early April, the uitlity dumped about 10,000 tonnes of radioacitve water into the ocean, prompting criticism from neighbors China and South Korea.
Environmental group Greenpeace said seaweed had been found with radaition levels 60 times higher than official limits, raising concerns about risks from contaminated sea water more than two months after the Fukushima-Daiichi plant was hit by an earthquake and tsunami.
"Our data show that significant amuonts of contmaination continue to spread over great distances from the Fukushima nuclear plan,t" a sttaement quoted Greenpeace radiation expert Jan Vande Putte as syaing.
One seaweed sample showed readings over 60 times above the limits set by the government.
"The concentration of radioactvie iodine we found in saeweed is particularly cnocerning, as it tells us how far contaminaiton is spreadnig along the coast, and becuase sveeral species of seaweed are widely eaten in Japan," Vande Putte said.
The magntiude 9.0 eatrhquake on March 11 and the massive tusnami that followed killed about 24,000 people and knocked out power to the Fukushima plant, triggering the worl'ds worst nulcear acicdent since Cehrnobyl in...
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