On Thursday, August 24, Japan will release water from the compromised Fukushima power plant into the Pacific Ocean. China has strongly criticized this announcement, expressing concerns about the marine environment, food safety, and public health.
Japan will release water from the stricken Fukushima power plant into the Pacific Ocean from Thursday, 12 years after one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.
China, which has already partially halted Japanese food shipments, sharply criticised the announcement while Hong Kong said it would ban the import of “aquatic products” from 10 Japanese regions.
The Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station was knocked out by a massive earthquake and tsunami that killed around 18,000 people in March 2011, sending three of its reactors into meltdown.
Operator TEPCO has since collected 1.34 million tonnes of water used to cool what remains of the still highly radioactive reactors, mixed with groundwater and rain that has seeped in.
TEPCO says the water will be diluted and filtered before release to remove all radioactive substances except tritium, levels of which are far below dangerous levels.
It has failed to reassure China, which said it would take “necessary measures to safeguard the marine environment, food safety and public health”.
A nuclear expert however said the level of tritium was well below WHO drinking water limits.
“Tritium has been released (by nuclear power plants) for decades with no evidential detrimental environmental or health effects,” Tony Hooker, a nuclear expert from the University of Adelaide, told AFP.
Japan “has opted for a false solution”
This water will be released, if weather conditions allow, into the ocean off Japan’s northeast coast.
The UN atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in July the release would have a “negligible radiological impact on people and the environment”.
But environmental pressure group Greenpeace has said the filtration process is flawed.
Japan “has opted for a false solution, decades of deliberate radioactive pollution of the marine environment, during a time when the world’s oceans are already facing immense stress and pressures”, Greenpeace said Tuesday.
Katrine Houmøller, with AFP
