You can’t show skin. You have to wear a mask, double socks, special shoes… “Radiation emanates from the ground; “You have to avoid touching it,” says Takahara Kenichi, one of the risk managers at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, on the eastern coast of Japan, who in 2011, after a tsunami, suffered a very serious level 7 accident. the highest on the international scale. In August of this year, from these facilities, where contaminated water has been stored since the incident, the liquid began to be poured into the Pacific Ocean, which, although it has been treated, has low amounts of tritium, a radioactive isotope. On November 19, the drainage planned for this year ends: three lots, totaling more than 23,000 tons of water. The operation, which will continue until 2025, is endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but has involved several countries and regions – China, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong and French Polynesia – to impose vetoes on the import of Japanese products, such as fish or cosmetics, which has fueled tension between Japan and its neighbors.
China, which leads the critical group, considers that the decision is “irresponsible and selfish” and that it involves “treating the sea as a landfill.” On August 24, the day the spill began, Beijing imposed an embargo on all its neighbor’s fishing products. A resounding blow to the Japanese industry: China is the main importer of Japanese fish (especially scallops, tuna, sea urchin, snapper and sea cucumbers), a market that in 2022 represented 87 billion yen (600 million euros ), according to data from the Japanese Ministry of Economy. Just one month after the ban, sales had fallen by 90%. Aligning itself with the Chinese argument, Russia also established a veto, in addition to accusing Tokyo of “lack of transparency.” Although the Government of Tokyo and the IAEA make public data on the spill and their conclusions, for the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zajárova, it is not enough. “[Japón] He has not complied; “It does not guarantee the absence of a threat,” he declared a few weeks ago.
The Japanese Government considers these vetoes, which it sees as “lacking a scientific basis,” as one more piece within a hybrid strategy. “It seeks to destabilize Japanese society; drive a wedge between Tokyo and strategic neighbors such as South Korea or Taiwan; or divert attention from issues such as the slowdown of the Chinese economy,” says Maiko Ichihara, a researcher who has analyzed Beijing’s influence in Japan. The expert in disinformation and manipulation dates back to 2021 – when the dumping plan was announced – the beginning of “a narrative campaign, whose main actor is the Government of China.” “There are actors who have been trying to control the story,” she clarifies.
To do this, they have used fake photos that show a change in the color of the sea water; publications that speak of very high levels of radiation in shellfish and fish, when the analyzes do not show it; or information about the bribes that the Japanese Executive had paid to the IAEA to obtain approval for its plan. Ichihara cites some media, such as Record China, key in this strategy. “They have continually written controversial articles about relations between Japan and South Korea,” says the professor in the Department of International Relations at the University of Hitotsubashi, before recalling the divisive protests called against the plan in Hong Kong and, above all, everything, in Seoul, where they have been multitudinous.
The Fukushima nuclear accident was, after Chernobyl in 1986, the second most serious in history. That fateful March 11, 2011, an earthquake under the Pacific generated a tsunami that hit and damaged the plant, managed by the private company TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company): four of the six reactors were damaged, with several explosions of hydrogen and core fusions. The magnitude of the event forced the establishment of a large exclusion zone and the evacuation of almost half a million people.
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After more than 12 years of dismantling work on the facilities, three of the damaged reactors have been sealed; The other – number 1 – is a mass of dilapidated and corroded iron. “It is the most contaminated area of the plant,” Kenichi points out in front of the installation, “it is not humanly possible to work there.” Until a few weeks ago, you had to enter with a PPE suit. Now, it is enough with the aforementioned precautions and a dosimeter, which measures the absorbed radiation and alerts if the limit is exceeded. “Bee, bee. Pi, pi”, the device warns after less than 10 minutes in the vicinity of the most damaged unit: “We have to go.”
The nuclear debacle occurred in the midst of a furious tidal wave, with storms and large amounts of water vapor. Such an amount of liquid in a radioactively contaminated area made it necessary to establish water flow control as a priority. Thus, the reactors were drained; to channel rain infiltration; and to isolate the subsoil, injecting gases at very low temperatures. All the liquid was collected and stored in tanks. “The ones we use now have a capacity for 1,000 tons,” explains the TEPCO technician, pointing out several rows of tanks. In August of this year, before starting the discharge, they stored around 1.4 million tons of contaminated liquid; enough to fill about 540 Olympic swimming pools.
In addition, the plant continues to generate about 90 tons of radioactive water per day (due to rain, condensation…), according to last year’s average. That is to say, the volume of liquid continues to increase, which poses storage problems. In 2021, the Government of Japan—led almost continuously since 1955 by the conservative LDP (Liberal Democratic Party)—announced that, after treating and diluting the water, it was going to dump it into the ocean. The discharges, supervised by the IAEA and carried out through a pipeline that drains one kilometer from the coast, in Japanese territorial waters, will extend until 2025.
Previously, they have gone through the so-called “advanced liquid processing system [ALPS, por sus siglas en inglés]”. A treatment that eliminates radioactive isotopes such as, among others, Iodine or Cesium-137. Despite this sophisticated cleaning process, one component remains in the water: tritium (³H), a radioactive molecule that is impossible to eliminate and is also present in nature. Hence, after applying the ALPS, the water is diluted: “The water discharged shows a concentration of tritium 50 times lower than the limit for human consumption established by the World Health Organization,” TEPCO points out.
After studying Japan’s plan, The IAEA also committed to carrying out independent sampling of the water, the marine environment and the animal species in the area. In fact, while EL PAÍS’ visit to the plant was taking place – at the invitation of the Japanese Government – in mid-October, a group of experts from the organization collected samples. So far, all tests conclude that the agreed values are being met. The tests carried out on agricultural and fishing products commissioned by the Fukushima Prefecture also confirm the absence of danger, which has studied more than 270,000 samples taken between March 2011 and the same month of 2023.
In the Soma fish market, 50 kilometers from the nuclear complex, a small laboratory has been analyzing specimens of fish and shellfish brought by fishermen since June 2012. Several boats have just arrived: sole and some swollen puffer fish are still floating in the baskets, before the auction for their sale begins. “The analyzes are carried out first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon; Different species are chosen at random, and in a maximum of 30 minutes the result is obtained,” explains Kyoichi Kamiyama, a worker at the Fukushima prefectural fisheries resources center.
Despite this, “people are afraid,” laments a resident of Tomioka, one of the cities closest to the plant, just 12 kilometers away. This city has spent 12 years deserted, within the exclusion zone, which, due to the dispersion of the radiation released after the incident, extended over an area of 1,150 square kilometers, forcing the evacuation of 470,000 people. Currently, 300 square kilometers remain inaccessible and some 30,000 people are still displaced, most of them (90%) from Fukushima prefecture.
After demolishing buildings, washing vegetation, and removing kilos and kilos of contaminated soil, in April of this year, Tomioka reopened its streets. In many corners of the quiet city there are radioactivity meters to inform citizens. “I don’t like water. It worries me and, furthermore, it causes a bad image for us. It makes everything complicated,” the aforementioned neighbor continues in Spanish. He prefers not to reveal his name: “Here we are few; “We all know each other.”
Before, this city had about 20,000 inhabitants; Now, encouraged by a public subsidy program, some 2,000 people have returned to the town to repopulate it. “My family, like my husband’s, were from the area,” says Maya Edo, a 41-year-old editor and one of the returnees to Tomioka. In 2011, her parents were evacuated from there and although they have rebuilt her life elsewhere, now that her daughter has settled back in, they are considering returning. Edo speaks from a charming, newly built cafeteria. “Right here is where my high school was,” she details as she makes a failed attempt to remember the layout of the building, the classrooms or the school yard. “The whole city has changed a lot,” she adds. Why do I return? “I don’t know. Maybe in memory of my grandparents. When they reopened the city, I felt a kind of call to return, to get involved and do something to bring it back to life.”
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