TOKYO, Aug 24 — Japan today marked a year since it started to release tritium-containing treated water into the sea from Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, with the country still facing a long road ahead in completing the discharge project.
Jiji Press reported that while a total of around 60,000 tonnes of treated water has been discharged from the north-eastern Japan plant that was devastated by the March 2011 powerful earthquake and tsunami, there have been no issues in tritium levels reported in nearby waters so far.
With some 1.31 million tonnes of treated water still stored at the power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, the water discharge process is expected to take 30 years or so to complete.
Before being discharged, the treated water, or wastewater from which radioactive substances other than tritium have been removed, is diluted with seawater so that the tritium concentration is below the safety limit of 1,500 becquerels per liter. The country is currently discharging its eighth batch of treated water.
Responding to Japan’s start of the water discharge on August 24 2023, China imposed a blanket ban on imports of Japanese fishery products. — Bernama-Jiji Press
