The release of treated wastewater into the ocean from Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant was suspended on Wednesday as a partial power outage affected the site, operator TEPCO said.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said in a statement that the system to cool reactors remained operational and “no meaningful change” had been detected at plant facilities that monitor radioactivity.
In 2011, the Fukushima-Daiichi plant on Japan’s northeastern coast went into meltdown after a huge earthquake and tsunami that killed 18,000 people. It was one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.
“At around 10:43 am (0143 GMT), electricity source line A stopped,” Wednesday’s TEPCO statement said without giving details.
The release of water treated through a filtration process called ALPS also stopped at the same time, it said.
TEPCO added that a worker had been injured during an excavation operation.
“We are trying to figure out other details… there seems to be a link between this electricity loss and suspension of the ALPS operation,” a TEPCO spokesman told AFP.
“We are trying to figure out” a potential link between the injury and the electricity loss, he said.
The worker was conscious and not contaminated, but was seen by an on-site doctor and an ambulance was called.
Last year, Japan began releasing treated wastewater from the plant into the Pacific Ocean.
