China on Thursday slammed Japan after it began controversially dumping water from Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, calling it a “selfish and irresponsible” action.
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Minutes earlier, Japanese authorities had activated pumps and valves to direct water into the sea.
This first spill is expected to last about 17 days and affect about 7,800 m3 of plant water, which contains tritium, a radioactive substance that is only dangerous in high concentrations.
“China strongly opposes and vehemently condemns (this decision). It has formally protested to Japan and demanded that this reprehensible action be stopped,” a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said in a press release.
“The ocean is the common good of mankind. The forced discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant into the sea is an extremely selfish and irresponsible action that disregards the international public interest.”
In all, Japan plans to discharge more than 1.3 million cubic meters of wastewater previously stored at the plant’s site into the Pacific Ocean.
They come from rainwater, groundwater and injections needed to cool the cores of reactors that melted after the March 2011 tsunami that devastated the country’s northeast coast.
“The Japanese government has not proved the legitimacy” of these discharges, nor that they are harmless to the marine environment and human health, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.
“What Japan is doing is spreading the risks (related to these waters) to the entire world and extending the pain (related to the disaster) to future generations,” he said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which oversees the disposal operation, gave the green light in July, concluding that the project met “international safety standards” and that it would have “negligible” radiological impacts on the population and the environment”.