Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the plant's operator, admitted last month that contaminated water from Fukushima had leaked into the underground water system and reached the sea. The company gave its first estimate of the extent of the leak this weekend.
According to AFP, TEPCO estimates between 20 trillion and 40 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium have spilled into the ocean.
UPI explains a becquerel is a unit of radioactivity, "the quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second."
It is unclear what effect the contamination will have on the environment. While the leak is about 10 to 100 times the volume the plant leaks during normal operations, TEPCO maintains the leak is within the regulations set before the disaster, the Asahi Shimbun writes.
“There is only a minor effect on the environment because it is about the same level as the upper limits of emission standards during operating periods,” a TEPCO official said, according to the newspaper.
(HuffPo images - anti-nuke power protest)
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