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Japan reported in April that it would release more than 1 million tons of contaminated water intermittently after treatment and dilution, starting in the spring of 2023. The announcement alarmed local fishermen, as did neighboring China and South Korea.
Nearly 1.3 million tons of polluted water accumulated in the decade after the massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 devastated the country’s northeastern coast, rendering the power plant inoperable and causing the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
Enough water to fill nearly 500 Olympic-size swimming pools is stored in massive tanks, which cost about 100 billion yen (284 billion forints) a year, and space is running out.
Japan has argued that water drainage is necessary to enhance the complex shutdown of the power plant and stated that similarly filtered water is regularly discharged from nuclear power plants around the world.
Cover image source: Getty Images
