Japan said Tuesday that it would spend over 40 billion yen (400 million US dollars) to contain the leakage of contaminated water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, Kyodo News Agency informed, dpa reported.
The emergency spending will come from reserve funds under the fiscal 2013 budget, unnamed government sources quoted by Kyodo said.
The severity of the leaks was raised to level 3 last week after plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said about 300 tons of highly contaminated water was found to have leaked from a storage tank.
The situation at the plant, which was hit by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, is now the most serious since the start of the nuclear disaster.
Large volumes of water are used to cool the damaged reactors inside the plant, becoming radioactive in the process. The contaminated water is stored in hundreds of large tanks, which are believed to be the source of the leaks.