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Japan begins final preparations for discharging contaminated water into the Pacific

2023-08-23 10:02:11, Kosova & Bota CNA

Japan begins final preparations for discharging contaminated water into the

Final preparations to discharge water from Japan's damaged Fukushima power plant began on August 23, a day before the planned spill into the Pacific Ocean.

Tokyo had announced the day before that the operation to drain the waters in the Pacific would begin on August 24. The announcement prompted a backlash from China and partial restrictions on seafood imports from Japan to Hong Kong and Macau.

The plant's operator, TEPCO, said on August 22 that it had diluted one cubic meter of sewage with about 1,200 cubic meters of seawater and put it through a pipeline from where it could empty into the Pacific.

The process will first be tested through this initial quantity and then, starting on August 24, it will be released into the sea along with more diluted water, TEPCO said in a statement.

The Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant was struck by a massive earthquake and tsunami that killed an estimated 18,000 people in March 2011, when a third of the plant's reactors melted down.

TEPCO has collected 1.34 million cubic meters of water since then, which was used to cool the still highly radioactive reactors.

A separate system has filtered out all radioactive nuclides except tritium, whose levels will be within safe limits, according to TEPCO.

The emptying of those waters into the Pacific has been approved by the UN nuclear watchdog, which said it will have personnel on the ground on August 24 to oversee the process, which will take decades to complete.

China has also accused Japan in the past of treating the ocean as a "sewage", banning food imports from ten of Japan's 47 prefectures even before this process.

China summoned Japan's ambassador on August 22 "to make solemn representations," while Hong Kong and Macau, both Chinese territories, announced a ban on imports of "aquatic products" from the same ten Japanese regions.

Analysts said that while China may have genuine security concerns, its harsh response is also at least partly motivated by economic rivalry and frosty relations with Japan./ REL





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