On Thursday, Japan began draining water from the stricken Fukushima plant into the Pacific Ocean, sparking protests within Japan and from neighboring countries, especially China, which imposed a ban on imports of marine products from Japan.
Japan and scientific organizations say the water has been made safe after undergoing filtration processes to remove most radioactive elements except for tritium, which is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen.
Because it is difficult to separate the tritium from the water, the Fukushima plant water is diluted until the tritium levels fall below permissible limits.
The environment ministry said its tests of samples taken from 11 points near the station showed that tritium isotope concentrations are below the minimum detectable level of 7 to 8 becquerels of tritium per liter of water. negative impact on human health or the environment.
An official told Reuters the ministry would publish test results weekly for at least the next three months.
The Japanese Fisheries Agency said that examinations of fish from the waters around the station did not show any abnormalities and tests conducted by the agency on Saturday showed that the fish had no detectable levels of tritium.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which operates the plant, said on Friday that seawater near the plant contains less than 10 becquerels of tritium per liter, below the company’s own limit of 700 becquerels and far below the limit set by the World Health Organization. For drinking water, it is 10,000 becquerels.
TEPCO said today that it had not detected any significant change. Fukushima Prefecture also released test results from 9 sites near the plant that showed tritium to be below the detectable limits.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry said that Japanese offices have received a barrage of phone calls, mainly from China, to complain about the water discharge, adding that it has asked the Chinese embassy in Japan to call on citizens in China to remain calm.
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