NRA in Fukushima

August 23, 2013

Nuclear regulators visit Fukushima plant over toxic water leak

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130823p2g00m0dm082000c.html

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Officials of the Nuclear Regulation Authority visited the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Friday to check a storage tank from which 300 tons of highly radioactive water is believed to have leaked.

The tank may not be the only source of leaked polluted water, as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday that it measured high radiation levels around the bottom of two more tanks of the same type, a sign that water may have oozed out from the containers.

As TEPCO continues to struggle with its cleanup efforts at the stricken plant, a memorial service for Masao Yoshida, who headed the plant when the nuclear crisis erupted there in March 2011, was held in Tokyo the same day.

Yoshida died of esophageal cancer at a hospital on July 9, after stepping down as plant chief in December 2011.

The memorial service was organized by TEPCO. President Naomi Hirose praised Yoshida for "devoting his full strength" to a kind of emergency that no one had ever experienced.

Naoto Kan, who was at that time Japan's prime minister, told reporters after attending the event that "It is because of Yoshida that the situation (at the plant) did not further deteriorate."

TEPCO said Yoshida's radiation dose after the accident was 70 millisieverts, less than the 100-millisievert limit for nuclear workers over a five-year period, and believe there was little causal relationship between his disease and his exposure to radiation.