How did radioactive water leak from Fukushima Daiichi into the Pacific Ocean?

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earthquake damage, Honshu, Japan, 2011 — Japan earthquake and tsunami of 2011 Aerial view of damage to a portion of the northeastern coast of Honshu, Japan, following the offshore earthquake and resultant tsunami there on March 11, 2011.

Following the 2011 Fukushima accident, radioactive water leaked into the Pacific Ocean primarily through cracks in trenches and tunnels that connected the Fukushima Daiichi facility to the sea.12

This contamination occurred after workers pumped seawater into the damaged reactors to cool and stabilize the overheating cores. This water became irradiated upon exposure to nuclear material inside the facility. The contaminated water subsequently escaped through the aforementioned cracks in the infrastructure between the plant and the ocean. By early April 2011, plant officials announced that these specific cracks had been sealed, and they began moving the irradiated water into on-site storage buildings for treatment.12