Japan nuclear leak alert

Tokyo Electric Power Company says up to 109 metric tonnes of highly radioactive water may have leaked from its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

It says the water may have leaked from an underground tank used to store liquid contaminated as it cooled the reactors.

Company officials say they're monitoring radioactivity levels.

(SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) TOKYO ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY (TEPCO) SPOKESMAN, MASAYUKI ONO, SAYING:

"At the current time (THIS MAN SAYS) our measurements inside and outside the bay by the plant do not indicate high radiation levels, so going on that basis we do not believe there is a leak into the sea."

The alert is the latest in a series of problems at the site.

On Friday it suffered a second cooling system failure in three weeks affecting its spent fuel pools.

The plant was the scene of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl when it was wrecked by a massive tsunami caused by a magnitude 9 earthquake just over two ye