News Desk
ISLAMABAD/TOKYO: Japan has announced that it would release more than a million tonnes of radioactive water into the sea from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant.
North-eastern Japan was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11, 2011, which had triggered a giant tsunami and the waves hit the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, inundating three reactors and sparking a major disaster.
Release of radioactive water into the sea
Earlier, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that the proposal for the release of radioactive water into the sea was safe, but Japan’s neighbouring countries have voiced concern.
The 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan was the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Friday that they expect the timing of the release would be sometime during this spring or summer, the BBC said.
He, however, said that Japan will wait for a “comprehensive report” from IAEA before the release.
According to the BBC, every day, the affecte plant produces almost 100 cubic metres of polluted water, which is a mixture of seawater, groundwater, and water used to keep the nuclear reactors cool. It is then filtered and stored in tanks. With over 1.3 million cubic metres on site, space was running out.
The water is filtered for most radioactive isotopes but the level of tritium was above the national standard, operator Tepco said. Experts say tritium was very difficult to remove from water and was only harmful to humans in large doses.
Japan’s neighbouring countries and local fishermen have opposed the proposal, which was approved by the Japanese government in 2021.
The Pacific Islands Forum earlier criticised Japan for the lack of transparency.
Forum Secretary General Henry Puna told the news website Stuff that the Pacific peoples wer coastal peoples, and the ocean continued to be an integral part of their subsistence living.
Puna said that Japan was breaking the commitment that their leaders made during a high-level summit in 2021.
Puna said that it was agreed during the summit that “we would have access to all independent scientific and verifiable scientific evidence before this discharge takes place. Unfortunately, Japan had not been cooperating.”
