|
Japan began dumping the water from the plant north of Tokyo into
the sea on Thursday despite objections both at home and abroad
from fishing communities and others worried about the
environmental impact.
"We will not be immediately seeing disasters like detecting
radioactive materials in seafood but it seems inevitable that
this discharge would pose a risk to the local fishing industry
and the government needs to come up with solutions," said Choi
Kyoungsook of the Korea Radiation Watch group that organized the
rally.
About 50,000 people joined the protest, according to the
organizers.
Japan and scientific organizations say the water, distilled
after being contaminated by contact with fuel rods when the
reactor was destroyed in a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, is safe.
The utility responsible for the plant, Tokyo Electric Power has
been filtering the water to remove isotopes, leaving only
tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that is hard to
separate.
Japan's fisheries agency said on Saturday that fish tested in
waters around the plant did not contain detectable levels of
tritium, Kyodo news service reported.
South Korea has said it sees no scientific problems with the
water release but environmental activists argue that all
possible impacts have not been studied.
"Nobody can tell what's going to happen to the marine ecosystem
in the next 100 years," said Choi.
Japan says it needs to start releasing the water as storage
tanks holding about 1.3 million metric tons of it - enough to
fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools - are full.
The first discharge of 7,800 cubic meters - equivalent to about
three Olympic pools - will take place over about 17 days.
(Reporting by Do Gyun Kim and Jimin Jung; writing by Heekyong
Yang; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2022 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
