How everything went so wrong at #Fukushima - Salon.com
▻http://www.salon.com/2013/08/23/how_everything_went_so_wrong_at_fukushima
The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, had “rigged a makeshift system of pipes and hoses” to continue cooling the reactors. From the beginning, that contaminated water has been leaking. As much as possible was contained in the plant’s storage tanks, but some made its way into the sea. For the past two and a half years, a “massive underground reservoir” of contaminated water has been building up underneath the plant. Tepco is widely alleged to have not done enough to contain it.
The slow, seeping buildup of a second catastrophe came to a head this summer. On July 10, Japan’s nuclear watchdog announced it “highly suspected” that the plant was leaking contaminated water into the ocean.