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Nuclear watchdog members inspect the site at Fukushima on August 23, 2013/AFP

World

Japan unveils $470 mn plan for Fukushima water leaks

On top of this, the natural flow of groundwater from the surrounding hillsides which goes underneath the plant and out to sea is also causing problems.

As it pours through the soil it is mixing with polluted fluid that has seeped into the ground under the reactors.

TEPCO says up to 300 tonnes of this mildly radioactive groundwater is making its way into the sea every day.

Under the 47 billion yen ($470 million) scheme announced Tuesday, scientists will freeze the soil around the stricken reactors to form an impenetrable wall they hope will direct groundwater away from the plant.

This will entail burying pipes vertically and passing refrigerant through them. Officials estimate the whole project will take two years and cost around 32 billion yen.

A further 15 billion yen will be spent on equipment to remove radiation from water currently being stored.

On Monday the head of Japan’s nuclear watchdog said it was “unavoidable” that water would have to be released into the ocean at some point, although he stressed it would have to be largely decontaminated first.

TEPCO’s clean up at Fukushima has come in for increasing criticism from politicians, academics and Japan’s usually quiescent public.

Last week a government minister compared its approach to plugging leaks with “whack a mole”, the anarchic fairground game in which players must hit furry creatures with a mallet as they pop up at random.

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The utility one of the largest in the world has been effectively nationalised by vast government bailouts needed to stop it from sinking beneath the weight of bills from the clean up and compensation claims.

While the natural disaster that sparked the nuclear emergency at Fukushima claimed more than 18,000 lives, no one is officially recorded as having died as a direct result of the radiation leaks.

However, vast tracts of land had to be evacuated, with tens of thousands of people still displaced.

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