Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company(TEPCO), the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, reportedly said that about five-point-five tons of radioactive water has leaked from a device treating contaminated water at the plant. 

According to the Asahi Shimbun on Wednesday, workers discovered water leaking from the device used to purify nuclear-contaminated water during an inspection of the equipment at around 9 a.m. 

At the time of the accident, the purification equipment was stopped as the workers were removing contamination in preparation for the inspection, and valves on the equipment were accidentally opened, causing the contaminated water remaining in the pipe to flow out of it.

TEOCO said the amount of water that leaked was approximately five-point-five tons, which may contain 22 billion becquerels of radioactive materials, but stated there was no impact on the area around the plant. 

TEPCO, however, plans to remove the soil outside the building as the leaked water might have seeped into the soil.

In August 2023, Japan started to discharge the wastewater from the plant into the Pacific Ocean.