TEPCO Delays Fukushima Decontamination Facility

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) has postponed the construction of a decontamination facility to treat radioactive water at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant by up to two weeks.

The delay increases the risk of radioactive spillage, which has occurred twice since a 9.0 magnitude earthquake hit Japan in March this year.

The basements and trenches of the plant’s damaged reactors house more than 100,000t of radioactive water.

TEPCO spokesman on nuclear issues Junichi Matsumoto said the water treatment facility, which is being built by Areva, is expected to come online before the middle of June.

“Until the treatment facility comes online, there is no choice but to allow contaminated water collecting in the reactor buildings,” said Matsumoto.

Currently the 10,000t water storage unit has 8,676t of water and will fill up in four days.