More than two years after the 2011 meltdown disaster started, the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is facing another crisis as an estimated 300 tons of highly radioactive water reach the Pacific Ocean every day.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Friday finally began a full-fledged effort to slow the massive flow by pumping highly toxic groundwater out of one location. But it won't get to two other areas for several months and estimates that it will take some two years at best to completely solve the problem.
Government officials now say the radioactive water began entering the sea at least since June, given spikes in radioactive materials in samples from a monitoring well near the coast within the plant compound.