Japan Fukushima toxic water leak a Level 3 'serious incident'

(CNN) Japan's nuclear watchdog on Wednesday said a toxic water leak at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant has been classified as a level 3 "serious incident" on an international scale.

The Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said it had made the decision after consulting with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said Juntaro Yamada, a spokesman for the regulator.

As news emerged last week of the leak of hundreds of tons of radioactive water from a storage tank, the NRA said it was planning to issue the alert, its gravest warning since the massive 2011 earthquake and tsunami that sent three reactors at the plant into meltdown.

The leak had previously been assigned a level 1 "anomaly rating" on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, which ranges from zero, for no safety threat, to seven, for a major accident like the meltdowns.

The decision to issue the level 3 alert came two days after a Japanese government minister had compared the plant operator's efforts to deal with worrying toxic water leaks at the site to a game of "whack-a-mole."

Toshimitsu Motegi, the industry minister, said Monday after visiting the plant that "from now on, the government is going to step forward." His ministry has been tasked by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to come up with measures to tackle the mounting problems at Fukushima Daiichi.

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