On Saturday, hundreds of South Koreans protested in Seoul against Japan’s controversial plan to discharge purified nuclear wastes into the Pacific Ocean.
Later this month, Tokyo plans to release the water from the Fukushima nuclear facility, which was damaged by the tsunami.
It has received UN nuclear watchdog approval, and a South Korean evaluation determined that it complies with global norms.
But opponents worry that fish would get tainted and marine life will be killed.
They marched through Seoul’s centre while carrying placards that said “Protect the Pacific Ocean” and “Nuclear Power? “No, thanks.”
Radiation in the ocean, according to activist Choi Kyoungsook of Korea Radiation Watch, “will eventually destroy the marine ecosystem.”
She declared, “The sea is for all of us and for mankind, not just the Japanese government.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which supports Japan’s plan, released a report last month.
A few days later, South Korea published its own analysis that concluded that water discharge should “not have any meaningful impact on our ocean areas,” according to government minister Bang Moon-kyu.
Japan has nevertheless come under fire both at home and abroad.
Groups in the fishing and seafood industries in Japan and the rest of the region have expressed worries about their livelihoods because they think people won’t buy seafood.
Additionally, a number of overseas specialists have voiced their reservations about the plans, including one in China who reportedly referred to the IAEA assessment as “hasty” in the state-run Global Times newspaper in China.
There is believed to be more than a million tonnes of treated radioactive water stored at the shut-down plant in northern Tokyo. The water was used to cool the reactors that were wrecked by the terrible earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.
When Japan first announced its plan to release the water into the ocean, it stated that the procedure would be properly controlled and that the water would be further diluted by seawater before being released.
Next week, US President Joe Biden will hold a trilateral summit with Prime Ministers of Japan, Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea, and Fumio Kishida of Japan to address the contentious idea.
“The governments of South Korea, the US, and Japan should view it as an environmental disaster, rather than a political issue, and agree to block it for future generations,” said Ms. Choi.