2023-07-07 04:46:00
The IAEA has approved the Japanese government’s plan to get rid (following treatment and dilution) of some 1.33 million tonnes of contaminated water, stored on the soon to be saturated site of the plant, ravaged by the triple earthquake disaster -tsunami-nuclear accident of March 11, 2011.
The dumping is set to begin this summer, but some neighboring countries in the region are once morest it, with Beijing strongly condemning the project, as are some Fukushima residents, especially fishing communities who fear customers will shun the product of their fishing.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday the IAEA report might not be used as a “green light” for the water release plan and warned of unknown risks to human health.
Chinese customs authorities said on Friday they would “ban food imports from ten Japanese prefectures, including Fukushima” for security reasons, and would carry out rigorous radiation tests on foodstuffs from the rest of Japan.
“Chinese customs will maintain a high level of vigilance”the authority said in a statement, without specifying the list of Japanese prefectures affected by the ban.
Some 1.33 million cubic meters of groundwater, rainwater and water used for cooling have accumulated at the Fukushima site, which is being dismantled following several reactors melted down following of the 2011 disaster.
The plant operator, TEPCO, treats the water using its ALPS treatment system to remove almost all of the radioactive elements, except tritium, and plans to dilute it before reject it in the ocean over several decades.
China said on Friday that Japan had “still many problems regarding the legitimacy of the dumping in the ocean, the reliability of the purification equipment and the completeness of the monitoring plan”.
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