After Japan released its third batch of radioactive wastewater on Thursday, Beijing has once again condemned Tokyo’s “irresponsible” methods of disposing treated wastewater from its stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.
Japan is “blatantly and irresponsibly spreading the risk of contamination worldwide,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for Beijing’s foreign ministry, at a press conference on Thursday, according to the ministry’s website.
Wang went on to say that a recent incident in which radioactive wastewater was inadvertently splashed onto plant workers is another example of TEPCO’s (Tokyo Electric Power Company) “problematic internal management and habit of deceiving the public.”
He added that the incident “makes people doubt once again the credibility of Japan’s purportedly ‘safe and transparent’ discharge plan.”
From late August, Japan began gradually releasing the equivalent of 540 Olympic-sized swimming pools of wastewater from the disabled nuclear facility in Japan’s east. The radioactive water had been used to cool reactors that went into meltdown following the deadly 2011 earthquakes and ensuing tsunami.
The third discharge began on Thursday and is expected to last 17 days.
Some members of the international community have condemned the disposal methods, with China and, later, Russia banning all imports of seafood from the region, claiming that Tokyo is harming the environment.
Japan, on the other hand, claims that the wastewater being released into the ocean poses no risk to the public and that its disposal, which will take decades, will be heavily diluted with seawater.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which oversees wastewater disposal, sided with Japan in September, saying it will be able to “provide assurances to people around the world that the discharge will cause no harm.”
