A nuclear expert has claimed that the current water leaks at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant are much worse than the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) authorities have stated, as they lacked accuracy in measuring radiation levels.
The BBC quoted Mycle Schneider as claiming that around 400 tonnes of extra contaminated water was being released into the ocean everyday as 1,000 storage tanks had a capacity of holding only 85 percent of the toxic water used as a coolant for the reactors.
Schneider, who has consulted various organisations and countries on nuclear issues, also revealed that the water was not just leaking from the tanks, but also the basement and the cracks everywhere at the site.
The recent revelation by the Tepco that the Fukushima nuclear plant was leaking around 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water from a storage tank on the site has sparked outrage in the country over the deadly health hazards.
The Japanese nuclear energy watchdog has, meanwhile, raised the incident level from scale one to three on the international scale that measures the severity of atomic accidents, the report added.
A former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland has urged the withdrawal of Tokyo's Olympic bid amid safety concerns.
Mitsuhei Murata wrote a letter to the UN secretary general saying that the official radiation figures published by Tepco could not be trusted.
