Tokyo Electric uses a jerry-rigged system to wash water over the melted uranium fuel rods to keep them cool and stable. The water flows into basements that have been leaking since the disaster.
Highly contaminated excess water is pumped out and stored in steel tanks on elevated ground away from the reactors, which lie adjacent to the coast. Tepco said it does not believe the water that leaked from the storage tank, which is about 500 metres (550 yards) from the shore, has escaped into the ocean.
But only this month the company, after months of denial, admitted contaminated water escaping from basements and trenches closer to the coast is reaching the ocean, prompting the government to step up its involvement in the plant's cleanup.
A South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman confirmed on Tuesday media reports that the country's government has asked Japanese officials to explain the leakage of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean.
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