Operator says new radioactive leak at Japan’s Fukushima

An estimated 300 tonnes of radioactive water is believed to have leaked from a tank at Japan's crippled nuclear plant, the operator said today as it battled the latest toxic water threat.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said the leak was believed to be continuing today at Fukushima and it had not yet pinpointed the source of it.

TEPCO said puddles with extremely high radiation levels have been found near the water tanks at the plant.

The radiation level was about 100 millisieverts per hour, it said.

"This means you are exposed to the level of radiation in an hour that a nuclear plant worker is allowed to be exposed to in five years," a TEPCO official told reporters.

The company later said it had identified which tank was leaking but had yet to find the spot from where it was leaking.

"We have instructed TEPCO to find the source of contaminated water...and to seal the leakage point," an official from the Nuclear Regulation Authority told AFP.

Decontamination workers remove radiated soil and leaves from a forest in Kawauchi village, Fukushima prefecture, on July 5, 2013. The most ambitious radiation clean-up ever attempted has proved costly, complex and time-consuming since the Japanese government began it more than two years in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. It may also fail. Doubts are mounting that the effort to decontaminate hotspots in an area the size of Connecticut will succeed in its ultimate aim - luring more than 100,000 nuclear evacuees back home.

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Japan nuclear regulator alarmed at Fukushima contamination reports

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Japan's nuclear regulator expressed growing alarm on Wednesday at increased contamination beside the seafront of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station and urged the plant's operators to take protective measures.

Fukushima's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., has acknowledged problems are mounting at the plant north of Tokyo, the site of the world's worst atomic disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

On Tuesday, the company said radiation levels in groundwater had soared, suggesting highly toxic materials from the plant were getting closer to the Pacific more than two years after three meltdowns triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami.

Shunichi Tanaka, head of the new Nuclear Regulation Authority, told reporters he believed contamination of the sea had been continuing since the March 2011 catastrophe.

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Scramble to reach Indonesia quake survivors as toll hits 22

Rescuers battled today to reach survivors from an earthquake in Indonesia's Aceh province that has killed at least 22 people, including several children who died when a mosque collapsed.

More than 200 people were also injured in Aceh's mountainous interior when the strong 6.1-magnitude quake struck yesterday, flattening buildings and triggering landslides.

The quake, which struck at a shallow depth of just 10 kilometres (6.2 miles), has sparked panic in the natural disaster-prone region where more than 170,000 people were killed by the quake-triggered tsunami of 2004.

In Blang Mancung village, Central Aceh district, at least six children were killed and 14 trapped when a mosque collapsed during a Koran reading session.

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Singapore smog eases as Indonesian planes waterbomb fires

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Air quality in Singapore improved significantly to "moderate" pollution levels on Saturday, as Indonesian planes waterbombed raging forest fires and investigators scrambled to determine the cause of one of Southeast Asia's worst air pollution crises

Indonesia's environment minister said eight domestic firms were suspected of being responsible for the blazes on Sumatra island that blanketed neighbouring Singapore in record levels of hazardous smog. Parent companies of the Indonesian firms included Malaysia-listed Sime Darby, the government said.

A senior presidential aide on Friday also blamed units of Jakarta-based PT Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology (SMART) and Asia Pacific Resources International (APRIL) for the fires.

"We will take legal action whoever they are," Environment Minister Balthasar Kambuaya told reporters. "Any companies from Indonesia, Malaysia or Singapore, they will be legally processed."

A car drives past fire from burning trees planted for palm oil, during haze at Bangko Pusako district in Rokan Hilir, on Indonesia's Riau province, June 24, 2013

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Singapore demands action from Indonesia on haze

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Singapore called for "definitive action" from Indonesia as air quality stuck at very unhealthy levels for a second day because of forest fires in its neighbour, disrupting businesses in the prosperous city-state.

Work at several Singapore construction sites slowed with few workers seen outdoors and fast-food operator McDonald's suspended its delivery service. The Singapore military suspended outdoor training.

"No country orcorporation has the right to pollute the air at the expense of Singaporeans' health and wellbeing," Singapore's Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said on his Facebook page.

The chief of Singapore's National Environment Agency, Andrew Tan, was heading to an emergency haze meeting convened in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, he said.

"We will insist on definitive action."

The Singapore skyline is blanketed by haze

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