2 Feb 2012

Radioactive leak at Fukushima plant

1:35 pm on 2 February 2012

Nearly eight tonnes of radioactive water has leaked from a reactor at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, but the plant's operator says it has not flowed outside the reactor building.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company says the leak occurred in the number four reactor after a pipe connected to it dropped off.

TEPCO says the leak was swiftly stopped.

The plant was crippled by a tsunami after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake on 11 March last year.