Chinese officials have stated that the UN nuclear watchdog and anyone who assert that the wastewater from a Japanese reactor is safe should drink it.
Beijing has said that individuals who think the water is safe could drink it and go swimming in it in response to the UN nuclear watchdog’s contentious support for Japan’s plans to dump toxic wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean.
When questioned about recent remarks made by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi praising the safety of Fukushima’s wastewater, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbin addressed the matter. Grossi’s assertions that the water was even safe for drinking or swimming were ridiculed by him.
“We suggest that Japan save the nuclear-contaminated water for these people to drink or swim in instead of releasing it into the sea and causing widespread concerns internationally,” Wang said. “If some people think that the nuclear-contaminated water from Fukushima is safe to drink or swim in.”
More than ten years after a tsunami generated by an earthquake inundated the plant and ignited the meltdown of three of its reactors, the IAEA this week approved Tokyo’s plans to dump Fukushima wastewater into the ocean. The plant’s storage reservoirs are becoming too small to accommodate the plant’s daily production of around 100 cubic meters of wastewater. After being processed to remove the majority of its radioactive components, Japanese officials have asserted that the water complies with international safety requirements.
The IAEA examination of the discharge plan, according to Wang, was too narrowly focused and rapidly came to a judgment that ignored international safety concerns. He said: “The IAEA cannot guarantee that all nuclear-contaminated water will be up to standard after treatment in the next 30 years because it did not analyze the effectiveness and long-term reliability of Japan’s treatment facilities. “The IAEA cannot easily draw a conclusion on the impact of long-running discharge on the marine environment and food safety.”
The Chinese representative further emphasized that the IAEA’s conclusion shouldn’t be taken as gospel truth. Wang argued that Japan couldn’t simply cite the IAEA report as approval for the ocean discharge.
When Grossi visited Seoul on Sunday, protesters from South Korea voiced their opposition to the IAEA’s findings. The head of South Korea’s largest opposition party, Woo Won-shik, charged that the nuclear watchdog was “biased in favor of Japan from the beginning.” He claimed that the organization did not adequately look into how the wastewater discharges affected the surrounding countries.
