Experts recently discovered a number of leaking containers that they believe could cause an explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
According to the experts, 10 percent of recently inspected containers with contaminated water were found to be leaking at the plant, which is located in in the towns of Ōkuma and Futaba in the Futaba District of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
"The leakages discovered during inspections by Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the operators of the plant, were thought to be caused by a build-up of hydrogen and other gases due to radiation contamination," reports The Telegraph.
The findings were recently reported to the Nuclear Regulation Authority, who are worried about the effect of built-up hydrogen in the containers. One NRA official said that "if the concentration level is high, a spark caused by static electricity could cause a container to explore,"
While the NRA is worried about this build up, Tepco believes the danger is minimal.
"We think the possibility of an occurrence of hydrogen explosion from these storage facilities is extremely low, since there is no fire origin, or anything that generates static electricity nearby," Mayumi Yoshida, a spokeswoman for Tepco, told The Telegraph.
Yoshida went on to explain that Tepco is responding to the problem by removing the leaked water, installing absorption materials, asking patrols to monitor the container, keeping water level inside those facilities lower than set and keeping equipment which may generate fire away from the containers.
"In the long term, we're going to lower the water level of current facilities so as to prevent further leakages" Yoshida added.
The Fukushima nuclear plant has been involved in the decommissioning process for years, and has had a lot of technical issues since the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011.
