Nuclear accidents: Fukushima dumping: hackers attack Japan’s nuclear lobby

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nuclear accidents
Fukushima dump: Hackers attack Japan’s nuclear lobby

Japan plans to start discharging treated cooling water from the Fukushima nuclear facility soon. Seafood will then be tested daily for radioactive tritium. photo

© Shohei Miyano/Kyodo News/AP/dpa

The implementation of the plans is imminent: despite widespread criticism, the operator of the Fukushima nuclear ruins wants to discharge radioactive water into the sea. Now a well-known hacker group is on the scene.

The international Hacker group Anonymous has attacked organizations of the Japanese nuclear lobby in protest against the impending discharge of treated cooling water from the Fukushima nuclear ruins into the sea. Networks of the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency and other organizations have been bombarded with a flood of data, the IT security company NTT Security Japan announced on Friday, according to the Kyodo news agency. Japan’s government did not involve citizens in the decision-making process, the agency quoted a member of the hacker group as saying. “We must end the senseless act of dumping the sea for economic reasons,” said the Anonymous member.

Before the dumping, which is expected to begin towards the end of this month, the water from the nuclear ruins will be filtered. However, the system cannot filter out the radioactive isotope tritium. The water should therefore be greatly diluted. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), there is no danger to humans or the environment. According to Japanese media reports, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will probably decide on Sunday when the dumping will begin.

In 2011, an earthquake and tsunami caused a core meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The destroyed reactors still have to be cooled with water stored in tanks. There are now more than 1.3 million tons stored there. According to the operating company Tepco, the space on the site is gradually running out. The Japanese government therefore decided that the contaminated cooling water should be channeled into the sea via a one-kilometer tunnel specially built for this purpose in the Pacific Ocean. The dumping of the huge amounts is estimated to take around 30 years.

dpa

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