Fukushima radioactive water could overflow soon
2011/06/05
Raising fresh concerns about its ability to bring the nuclear crisis under control, Tokyo Electric Power Co. announced June 3 that highly radioactive water pooled in underground pits could start rising above ground in less than three weeks.
The company said there were 105,100 tons of stagnant water with high levels of radioactivity within the power plant as of the end of May.
The water contained an estimated 720,000 terabecquerels of radioactivity (1 tera is 1 trillion), according to the operator of the plant battered by the earthquake in March. That is more than the amount of radioactivity released from the plant into the atmosphere in the wake of the accident, which is estimated at 370,000 to 630,000 terabecquerels. TEPCO warned that the contaminated water pooled in the basement of the buildings could start flowing out as early as June 20...
...The utility made estimates of when the contaminated water in buildings' basements could leak aboveground, under several different scenarios, suggesting that it could happen as early as June 20...
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106040157.html