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Friday, June 17, 2011

Japan : Leak source identified at Fukushima Daiichi pant

Via NHK News :

" Tokyo Electric Power Company says that a damaged valve caused a water leak in a system to decontaminate the highly radioactive water accumulating in the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The utility is making efforts to restore the newly installed water treatment system.

The system's final test run was suspended on Thursday night after water was found leaking from a US-made device that removes radioactive cesium. The device is one of the major components of the system.

Company officials found that an air ventilation valve in one of the containers comprising the device had been damaged. They also discovered that a water valve in another container was closed.

They concluded that contaminated water inside the cesium removal device had escaped through the air valve, resulting in the leak.

The company is now replacing the damaged valve.

It plans to resume the test run as soon as possible and start full-scale operation of the decontamination system within Friday as initially planned.

Tokyo Electric says the system is essential to its efforts to reduce the amount of highly radioactive water accumulating in the plant. It is feared that the water could overflow in around 10 days."

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