Radioactive Leak Discovered
at Japanese Nuclear Plant

Paraphrased by
Steve Waldrop
June 24, 2004

A radioactive leak was found at a Japanese nuclear fuel-reprocessing plant but it posed no danger to humans or the environment, according to officials.

The stat-run Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, which operates the plant, said the leak was discovered after a plant worker spotted two small stains on the wall of a room inside the fuel processing plant.

"Our radioactive measuring instrument responded to the stains and we quickly sealed of the room," said the official at the Institute in Tokaimura, 70 miles northeast of Toyoko.

"The level of radioactivity was really small," he said.

Tokaimura is notorious for an accident in 1999 when a critical reaction at a uranium processing plant at the facility killed two workers and exposed over 400 people to radiation.