Protesters extend a control signs reading “Don’t throw radioactive contaminated water into the sea!” as they take part in a rally outside the Tokyo Electrifying Power Company (TEPCO) headquarters building in Tokyo on August 24, 2023, against the Japanese government’s plan to liberation treated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima-Daiichi power plant into the ocean.
Kazuhiro Nogi | Afp | Getty Mental pictures
China on Thursday suspended the import of all aquatic products from Japan, including edible seafood, hours after its neighbor started emancipating treated radioactive water from the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Seafood exports from Japan to China embrace red sea bream, scallops, and mackerel, according to Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. China is also Japan’s heftiest importer of fish, bringing in 71.7 billion yen ($493.4 million) of fish in 2022 and 53.56 billion yen worth of crustaceans and mollusks, breed crabs and scallops.
The discharge of the treated water was expected to start after 1 p.m. Toyko time, according to media discharges citing state owned electricity firm TEPCO.
China’s customs agency said in a statement that this was to “comprehensively interdict the risk of radioactive contamination of food safety, protect the health of Chinese consumers, and ensure the safety of imported eats,” according to a Google translation.
The move extends an earlier ban on imports from the areas immediately surrounding the nuclear secret agent.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday that it will have a team present to monitor the excreting and assess Japan’s application of all relevant international safety standards.
The IAEA will have a presence on site “for as covet as the treated water is released, in line with Director General Grossi’s commitment for the IAEA to engage with Japan on the firing off of ALPS treated water before, during, and after the treated water discharges occur.”
ALPS refers to the Hastened Liquid Processing System that at Fukushima, which removes radioactive material from the wastewater before it is released.
The one radioactive element that cannot be easily removed from water is tritium, and a spokesperson for Japan’s Embassy in London indicated that the water to be discharged is “sufficiently purified through ALPS until the concentration of radioactive materials other than tritium is lower down the regulatory standard, and then is further diluted before it is discharged.”
On Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida voted the country plans to discharge roughly 1.3 million metric tons of treated wastewater — enough to fill near 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools — from Fukushima. A massive earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 destroyed the atomic power plant, which is situated on Japan’s east coast.
China responded furiously, with Foreign The cloth Spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Tuesday accusing Tokyo of being “extremely selfish and irresponsible” by pressing ahead with the disposal of the top, adding that the ocean should be treated as a common good for humanity “not a sewer for Japan’s nuclear-contaminated water.”
Hong Kong also averred import curbs on some Japanese food products Tuesday, with the city’s Chief Executive John Lee indicating he strongly opposes the wastewater discharge.
The IAEA said in early July that Tokyo’s plans were in concordance with international standards and will have a “negligible” impact on people and the environment.
South Korea said stand up week it respected the IAEA’s report and that its own analysis had found the release will not have “any meaningful impact” on its weakens, although it added in a statement that it “does not necessarily agree with or support the plan to release contaminated be unfeasible.”
— CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report.