Nuclear Waste
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Japan begins releasing nuclear waste water into the Pacific Ocean despite local and international objection demand for seafood drops and panic buying of sea salt in China begins
Japan’s release on Thursday of treated nuclear waste water into the Pacific Ocean from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant has forced Chinese consumers to stay away from sea food stalls and rushed to stock up on salt following Beijing’s condemnation. Reuters reported Friday.
During the past few weeks, China’s state media and government officials repeatedly criticised the plan, saying the Japanese government had not proved that the water discharged would be safe, emphasising its danger to neighbouring countries.
Journalists and TEPCO employees walk past storage tanks for radioactive water at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant © Tomohiro Ohsumi / Getty Images
Hours after Japan went ahead with the release, China issued a blanket ban on all aquatic products from Japan.
North Korea called on Japan to immediately stop the release of radioactive wastewater from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, according to a statement shared by the KCNA news agency on Thursday.
The Japanese move “seriously threatens the lives, safety and the future of humanity,” the Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang said. North Korea further accused Japan of committing an “unforgivable crime against humanity” and demanded that it be held accountable.
At the Jiangyang Seafood Market in Shanghai’s Baoshan District, two vendors said that the market’s management toured stalls on Thursday afternoon and requested the removal of Japanese products.
Though Japanese seafood was no longer on sale, some vendors voiced concerns that customers would be put off all seafood, regardless of origin.
Panic buying of salt began following the announcement supermarket shelves were emptied of salt and online sales platforms were sold out in some places, including Beijing and Shanghai, as people rushed to stock up.
According to an data published by Chinese media outlet Jiemian, 6.73 million orders for salt were placed on the e-commerce platform JD.com since Aug.22.
The state-run National Salt Industry Group, the world’s biggest common salt maker, urged people not to panic buy in a statement issued late of Thursday, reassuring consumers that it was ramping up production and the shortfall would be temporary.
A view of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after it started releasing treated radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean, seen from the nearby Ukedo fishing port in Namie town, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan August 25, 2023. REUTERS/Tom Bateman
Salt was also a hot commodity in China in 2011 following the initial Fukushima nuclear disaster. Aside from the concerns about the potential contamination of sea salt, there is also widespread belief in China that iodised salt can help protect against radiation poisoning.
Shanghai shopper Wang Kaiyun, 56, said she knew many people who believed salt protects against radiation poisoning, but she was in the supermarket to stock up before it ran out.
“I saw all of the videos online showing no salt in the supermarkets,” she said. “I thought I should buy it now in case I need salt for cooking in the near future.”
On Thursday, China’s special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau also announced import bans on Japanese seafood from 10 prefectures. South Korea, which already had restrictions in place, said it would not lift them despite vouching for the safety of the Japanese plan.
Greenpeace activists have also accused Tokyo of “deliberate pollution of the Pacific Ocean,” and insisted that storing the water would have been a better course of action.
Tokyo has stressed that the move has been approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The UN’s nuclear watchdog greenlit the Japanese plan last month, stating that independent on-site testing had shown that the tritium concentration in the water was far below the operational limit, and that the impact the move would have on people and the environment would be “negligible.”
Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) also published test results on Thursday claiming that the water contained up to 63 becquerels (a unit of radioactivity) of tritium per liter – far below the WHO drinking water limit of 10,000 becquerels per liter.
Source Reuters/RT/KCNA/AP
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