The Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant.
Photographer: Toru Hanai / Bloomberg
Photographer: Toru Hanai / Bloomberg
China is stepping up pressure on Japan’s plan to release treated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean, and is asking government officials to drink the liquid to prove its safety.
“Japanese politicians said the treated wastewater is ‘innocent,’ why don’t they first drink, cook, and wash their clothes with water?” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Twitter on Thursday. When Asked on Friday about the comments, Japan’s finance minister Taro Aso shunned consultations and said Fukushima’s water pollution levels are below international limits.
Tokyo’s plan to release wastewater into the Pacific Ocean announced Tuesday has been tough criticized by China, Taiwan, South Korea and North Korea.
Aso has said the water seemed safe enough to drink. The US Department of State indicated that the plan appears to be in line with global dumping standards. The International Atomic Energy Agency supported the planned versions, which would not start for two more years and are expected to last for decades.
Contaminated water storage tanks are at TEPCO’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in 2017.
Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi / Bloomberg
The US Food and Drug Administration maintains restrictions on imports of some Fukushima food products due to potential radioactive contamination, according to the prefecture’s website.
Calls have long been made to demonstrate the safety of treated groundwater flowing through the destroyed Fukushima plant. A ruling party official drank a glass of water in 2011 collected inside the reactor building at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi facility in an attempt to support government claims that decontamination efforts were progressing.
– With the assistance of Colum Murphy and Yuko Takeo