In my post 37 centimeters of concrete it was speculated that things are still looking good because containment has held.
Today we find that contaminated water has leaked from the facility and it is unknown whether that contamination has reached the ocean.
(CNN) -- Workers at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility have discovered a leak of 45 metric tons of radioactive water, operator Tokyo Electric Power Company said in a statement Monday.
It's unclear whether the contaminated water reached the Pacific Ocean.
The water was found Sunday morning inside a barrier around an evaporative condensation apparatus, which is used to purify sea water used at the plant to cool reactors damaged in the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March.
TEPCO said it was able to stop the leak by stacking sandbags around a crack found in a concrete barrier around the condensation unit. The company said the sea water around the drain had a slightly higher level of a radioactive substance -- cesium 137 -- than usual. TEPCO said it is still working to see how much contaminated water may have reached the ocean.
I reiterate that we need to focus on wind, wave, and solar instead of throwing money away to these money pits that do double duty destroying our living space.
H/T to davidwalters:
Apparently the leek has been repaired. 45 cubic metres is a huge puddle. 11887 gallons. A little bigger and it could be the average in ground swimming pool.
A puddle of around 45 cubic metres of water was discovered inside a containment barrier around the evaporative condensation apparatus on 4 December. The apparatus is used to desalinate concentrated salt water produced during the treatment of radioactively contaminated water. Treated water is then re-used for cooling the stricken reactors at the site.
Subsequent investigations revealed a crack in the concrete barrier through which water was leaking into a gutter. The leak was stopped with sandbags, and the water that had accumulated inside the barrier was transferred by pump to a waste liquid storage tank.
The gutter into which the water had leaked is connected to the power station's central drainage channel. Plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) reports that water samples taken from the water channel near the desalination apparatus and also at the seaward end of the drain returned radionuclide analyses that were similar to "or slightly higher" than previous readings, although samples taken the following day showed levels no different to those recorded before the leak.