Japan begins dumping water from Fukushima power plant into the sea, Beijing suspends all imports of Japanese seafood

Japan began Thursday, August 24, to discharge water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant, despite strong opposition from China and the concern of Japanese fishermen. Beijing thus immediately denounced an action “selfish and irresponsible” and has announced to suspend all seafood imports from Japan. This decision, taken on behalf of “food safety”intended to “prevent the risks of radioactive contamination caused by the discharge into the sea of ​​contaminated water”Customs said in a statement.

The plant’s water discharge process, which includes pumps, valves and a complex network of pipes, began shortly after 1 p.m. Japanese time (6 a.m. Paris time), after a brief countdown, according to a video broadcast live by Tepco, the plant operator.

Three more spills by March

This first spill is expected to last about 17 days and involve some 7,800 m3 of plant water containing tritium, a radioactive substance that is only dangerous in highly concentrated doses. Tepco plans three other spills by the end of March, for volumes equivalent to the first.

In total, Japan plans to evacuate into the Pacific Ocean more than 1.3 million m3 of wastewater stored until now on the site of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, from rainwater, groundwater underground and injections needed to cool the cores of reactors that went into meltdown after the March 2011 tsunami that devastated the country’s northeast coast.