This Tuesday, the plant suffered a power outage and the pumps collecting and transferring toxic water stopped working

Apr 22, 2015 09:15 GMT  ·  By

A brand new leak happened at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan this past Tuesday. This time, water contaminated with radioactive compounds made it all the way into the nearby Pacific Ocean.

Presently, it is unclear how toxic the water that reached the Pacific Ocean during this latest leak might have been. Besides, the nuclear plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., is clueless about the amount of tainted water that spilled.

The leak was caused by a power outage

It is understood that this latest radioactive leak at the Fukushima nuclear plant occurred due to a power outage that hit the facility Tuesday morning, at around 9 a.m. local time. The cause of the power outage remains unclear.

What is known is that, when the nuclear plant was left without electricity, as many as eight pumps that were being used to collect and transfer toxic water from a drainage channel to an artificial bay built for storage stopped working.

The drainage channel from which the tainted water was being pumped to the nearby artificial bay was found to leak in late February, RT informs. To solve the problem, the plant's operator opted to use pumps to move the water stored in it.

When the power outage hit the facility this past Tuesday and the pumps ceased to function, the drainage channel once again started leaking. As mentioned, some of the tainted water made it all the way to the shoreline and into the Pacific.

The water is feared to be highly toxic

Admittedly, Tokyo Electric Power Co. has no idea exactly how much water seeped into the Pacific this week and how contaminated it was. Still, word has it the water was highly toxic and therefore a threat.

Thus, it is said that when it last checked the concentration of radioactive materials in the drainage channel back in May, the nuclear plant's operator found it to exceed the legal limit many times over.