Earlier this week, the Tokyo Electric Power Company announced that at least 300 tons of highly contaminated water stored in a tank at the Fukushima site has leaked out. Nuclear experts believe that the leaks are even more prevalent than what was announced. The contaminated water in the affected tank has since been pumped out and placed in another storage container at the site.

Now, on Thursday, it was announced by TEPCO that other new high-radiation hotspots have appeared near the storage tanks, raising fears of new leaks in the storage facility. Revelation of the radiation readings suspected new leaks showed measurements of 100 millidieverts per hour and 70 millisieverts per hour recorded at the base of two of the many tanks at the site. These readings are five times the annual limit of exposure for nuclear workers.

The contaminated water from this most recent tank leak announced earlier this week has not yet reached the ocean, but, William Burnett, an oceanographer at Florida State University states that it is likely only a matter of time before it does. At that time the water will further contaminate the marine environment and the seafood in those waters.

Other scientists have pointed to the high levels of radiation in the waters off the plant for over a year as evidence that TEPCO is having problems containing the water.

These new readings has prompted Japan’s Nuclear watchdog to state that the situation is now a serious “incident” and considered beyond the ability of TEPCO to cope with. They have raised the incident level to three from its previous level of one on the International scale measuring the severity of the atomic accident. Level one on the scale is considered an “Anomaly,” level seven is the highest and is considered a “Major Accident,” level three is a “Serious Incident. “The group said that they fear that further leaks will occur. The operator of the nuclear plant also stated that they need help from outside of Japan to stabilize and decommission the disabled reactors.

Nuclear esperts state that the situation is far worse than what the Japanese government and TEPCO have admitted to. A member of the national diet’s Fukushima Investigation Committee said that TEPCO needs to be more transparent with the situation, saying, “To be fair to TEPCO most companies in a similar situation would be overwhelmed. The problem that they’re suffering that’s making things worse is that because of a lack of transparency, they’re trying to internalize these issues. Whereas if you’re a little more forthcoming and asking for help, whether it’s the national government or from other perhaps professionals from around the world this might have been handled differently.”

There are now at least a thousand tanks on the site holding contaminated water and those tanks are estimated to be at 85% capacity and each and every day an estimated 400 tons of contaminated water is added to the tanks.

On Wednesday, the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency announced that they were ready to help if needed.

Japan has been battling with the incident since a major earthquake and tsunami crippled the power plant in March of 2011 causing the leakage of radiation from four of the six reactors.