Plans to decontaminate six towns and villages close to Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant have to be delayed by up to three more years, officials say.
Image: Reuters
The clean-up of the exclusion zone around the crippled plant was initially due to be completed by next March.
More than 90,000 people remain unable to return home.
Fukushima has been hit by a series of toxic water leaks in recent months. The latest contamination was reported on Sunday after unexpectedly heavy rain.
Water with high levels of the toxic isotope Strontium-90 overflowed containment barriers around water tanks, operator Tepco said.
The tanks are being used to store contaminated cooling water from reactors damaged by the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011.
Cooling systems for reactors were knocked out, causing meltdowns at three of them.
TheConfirmationFiles 