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TEPCO shut down a newly installed system to clean contaminated water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant only hours after the operations began, when one of 24 cartridges that was expected to last a few weeks filled up after five hours. Fresh water being pumped into the plant to cool the damaged nuclear reactor cores has been contaminated, so that now roughly 105,000 tons of radioactive water threaten to overflow if TEPCO does not take action. TEPCO plans to treat the water and reuse it in the cooling system, but faces the additional problem of storing the radioactive water and sludge.