Tokyo Electric Power Company releases first figures on the extent of Fukushima leakage

Tokyo Electric Power Company, owner of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, has for the first time released figures on how much radioactive waste the facility has emitted, since being damaged by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake on March 11, 2011. Approximately 20 trillion to 40 trillion becquerels of nuclear energy has leaked since the disaster occurred, TEPCO said when releasing their data on August 5, 2013.

Hours after TEPCO made these figures public, a Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority (JNR) task force said that there is a “high possibility” that this waste has contaminated water along the coast of Miyagi, the prefecture to Fukushima’s immediate north.

“Right now we have a state of emergency,” Shinji Kinjo, head of the JNR task force, said.

Read more: wikinews.org