Kansai Electric may delay reactor restart after leak

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese utility Kansai Electric Power said on Monday it may delay the restart of its Takahama No.4 reactor from an original date of late February, following an incident involving the leak of contaminated water. The company had previously scheduled a final test before restarting the reactor from Sunday for about eight days, but this has now been delayed pending an investigation into the cause of the leak, a company spokesman said. Kansai Electric said on Saturday it found 34 litres of slightly radioactive water had leaked at the No. 4 unit at its Takahama nuclear plant in Fukui prefecture, 500 km (310 miles) west of Tokyo. The water had been cleared and there was no impact on the environment. The No.4 reactor has been shut since July 2011, months after an earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co. Kansai Electric restarted its Takahama No.3 reactor late January as part of test operations, making it the third reactor in Japan to resume operations after passing stringent safety checks imposed following the Fukushima disaster. (Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Richard Pullin)