An international investigation into the seawater and soil around Fukushima starts today. Japan has been discharging wastewater from its destroyed nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean here since last summer. And not everyone is happy about that.
An international group of scientists from China, South Korea and Canada, among others, will investigate the impact of these discharges on the environment. They will take samples of the water, sea animals, clay and sand in the coming week. These are then examined in a lab. Japanese authorities have all along said the discharges are safe, but they say they want to act transparently on this sensitive issue.
But what was it like again? This involves the discharge of a total of 1.3 million tons of wastewater, equivalent to filling five hundred Olympic swimming pools. The water was previously used to cool the reactors of the destroyed nuclear power plant. It suffered extensive damage from the 2011 tsunami and the plan is to dismantle the remains. But that is a complicated job, which first requires the water to be drained (in phases). Japan started this in August.
Before the wastewater ends up in the ocean, it is cleaned. The owner of the nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company, previously said that all radioactive substances have been filtered from the water.
With the exception of one substance: tritium. This is a relatively weak radioactive substance that is difficult to separate from water. Japan has repeatedly said the filtered water is safe for people, fisheries and marine life. This was also confirmed by the IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog. It emphasized that small amounts of tritium are not harmful and approved the discharges.
The nuclear disaster of 2011
The Fukushima nuclear power plant was severely damaged after an earthquake and tsunami hit the east coast of Japan in March 2011. The nuclear reactor melted down and exploded shortly afterwards. More than 150,000 people fled. It will go down in history as one of the largest nuclear disasters that have ever occurred.
Concerned Japanese and political tension in the region
Yet the run-up to the discharge caused unrest in Japan itself. Japanese fishermen feared that their trade would be threatened. Because who wants to buy fish from a polluted sea, they wondered out loud. The Japanese government has promised to compensate affected fishermen.
The discharges also lead to political tension in the region. China in particular is not happy. It is therefore striking that Chinese scientists are participating in the research. China ended seafood imports from Japan last summer. A drastic step, since China is the largest buyer of fish from Japan. According to the Japanese news agency NHK exports to China fell by 67 percent compared to a year earlier. Beijing accused Tokyo of treating the sea “like a sewer”.
The import ban means Japan is losing millions of dollars every month, and a lot of fish could also be lost as a result. The Guardian previously reported on mountains of scallops piling up in the freezers of processing plants that normally supply China.
In addition to China, there is also criticism from neighboring South Korea, where fishermen and environmental activists protested against the first discharge. And Russia, like China, also threatened to impose a ban on the import of fish from Japan, but nothing has happened yet.
Fukushima remains a headache
The destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant remains a headache for Japan. The samples that will be collected next week will be sent to labs in the countries where the researchers come from and will be independently examined. The IAEA will publish the results later.
If they go well, the discharge of the water will take at least thirty to forty years. And only then will the remains of the reactor and the radioactive debris be dismantled.
At the fish market, shells are tested for radioactive substances. Photo: Getty Images
2023-10-15 03:31:11
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