First Cabinet discussion of leak

September 10, 2013

Cabinet ministers discuss Fukushima leak

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130910_26.html

Japan's Cabinet ministers have held their first meeting to tackle the leakage of radioactive water at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The launch of the ministerial panel was decided under the government's basic plan compiled earlier this month to deal with the contaminated water issue.

In Tuesday's meeting, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told the participants that he hopes to enlist experts both at home and abroad to solve the issue in a truly effective way.

He instructed relevant government agencies to coordinate views and accelerate countermeasures.

The panel decided to identify potential risk factors and compile necessary countermeasures before the end of this year.

The government has already decided to spend about 470 million dollars in taxpayers' money to deal with the contaminated water leakage issue.

One plan is to freeze the surrounding soil to create an underground wall in a bid to prevent groundwater from seeping through and becoming contaminated. Construction work for a feasibility study may start in mid-October at the earliest.