Apple Daily reports, Typhoon Nangka’s invasion of Shikoku, Japan has caused two fatalities, 32 injured and 550 thousand families to evacuate.

With west Japan falling into chaos, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) says the continuous days of heavy rain has led to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station emptying sewage with excessive radioactive substance into the sea.

Liberty Times reports, Typhoon Nangka has flooded west Japan, and the nuclear power station has activated its emergency drainage mechanism.

TEPCO says the power station started pumping water into the harbor once it started raining, but the drainage pump can only contain 14 mm of rainfall each hour. The rainfall in Fukushima last Thursday morning had already reached 20 mm per hour. The pump was unable to draw all the water out and resulted in overflow.

It is still unknown how much radioactive rainwater has been drained into the ocean.

Apple Daily reports, rainwater collected from one of the drains at the power station contained 160 Bq/L of radioactive element, Cs-134. This is more than Japan’s legal standard of 60 Bq/L. The amount of Cs-137 was 670 Bq/L, which is much more than the legal standard of 90 Bq/L.

TEPCO believes that due to the rain, soil contaminated with radioactive elements has also been carried into the drains, which increased the amount of radioactive substance in the water. The power company will continue to monitor radiation levels in the seawater around the nuclear power station.

Translated by Olivia Yang

Sources:
Apple Daily
Liberty Times