Fukushima Disaster. China against Japan

Japan is starting a second release of purified water from the Fukushima power plant. The discharge will last less than three weeks, during which about 270 gallons of water will flow into the sea each day.

The operator of the Fukushima nuclear power plant announced that the second phase of dumping treated radioactive water into the sea began on Thursday. This process is continuing despite a dispute that has erupted between Japan and China on this matter. As announced in August, the water from the power plant will be gradually released into the sea over 30 years.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., which operates the power plant, announced plans to discharge approximately 270 gallons of treated water daily through an underwater tunnel located about 0,5 mile from the coast. This process is expected to take less than three weeks.

This latest dump plan is the second of four rounds that are to be conducted by the end of March next year. The aim of these actions is to release a total of about 31.2 thousand tons of purified water.

On Wednesday, the company announced that the concentration level of tritium in treated water diluted with seawater was 87 becquerels per liter. This is significantly below 1500 becquerels, which is one 40th of the concentration allowed by Japanese safety standards.

According to monitoring conducted by the Japanese authorities, since the first round of dumping, which lasted from August 24 to September 11, no irregular levels of tritium and other radioactive substances have been detected in the sea water. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also took fish samples around the nuclear power plant, here too no irregularities were found.

However, despite this information, several countries, such as China and Russia, as well as local fishermen from Fukushima Prefecture, criticized the Japanese government's decision. Beijing has repeatedly appealed to Japan to halt the discharge plan, arguing that the safety review conducted by the IAEA does not give a "green light" for the discharge into the sea of "water contaminated with nuclear energy". However, the UN nuclear watchdog said the discharge plan is in compliance with global safety standards and will have a "negligible" impact on people and the environment.