Radioactive material leak at Japan nuclear reactor
Date: 24-May-01
Country: JAPAN
The small leak of tritium had been detected at the facility operated by the government-funded Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute in Fukui prefecture, about 300 km (185 miles) northwest of Tokyo, officials said.
"A small leak tritium is natural. But this leak was slightly over the normal amount," a Fukui prefectural government official said.
"But there is absolutely no impact on the surrounding environment because the leakage was so small."
The operator has temporarily stopped the facility and inspections will be conducted this week, the official said.
"We know where it leaked from but not why," he said.
The facility has been operating since 1979 and is used for development of new fuel and research for plutonium usage.
A string of nuclear accidents in recent years has eroded public faith in Japan's nuclear industry.
In the country's worst nuclear accident, two workers were killed at a uranium processing plant in 1999 when staff used a bucket to mistakenly load nearly eight times the safe amount of condensed uranium into a mixing tank, triggering a self-sustaining nuclear reaction that took 20 hours to bring under control.