TOKYO, June 13 (Xinhua) -- The release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the ocean was automatically suspended again on Saturday after an alarm was triggered by low water flow in the pumping system, Kyodo News reported.
The alarm sounded at around 5:05 p.m. local time. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO), said that following an on-site inspection, no equipment malfunction was identified.
TEPCO determined that a momentary simultaneous outage affecting two power transmission circuits reduced the flow rates of the seawater transfer pumps, causing the emergency shutoff valve to close and the discharge operation to be suspended.
The company said discharge will resume once preparations are complete.
This was the second alarm triggered during the plant's nuclear-contaminated wastewater discharge operations in a week. The previous one, on Wednesday, was traced to a possible valve malfunction in a water storage tank and also halted the release. Discharge resumed the following day after the operator replaced the valve.
TEPCO began the 20th round of discharge of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water on June 1.
According to the company's previously announced plan, the latest discharge is scheduled to continue through June 19, with about 7,800 tonnes of wastewater expected to be released into the sea, containing approximately 1.3 trillion becquerels of radioactive tritium. ■