North Korea has called on the international community to prevent Japan from discharging treated wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean.
“The righteous international community must not sit back and watch the evil, anti-humanitarian and belligerent action of the corrupt force trying to disrupt the homeland of mankind on the blue planet – and must unite to stop them and destroy them completely,” the country said. said the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
His statement, reported by state-run media KCNA on Sunday, comes after the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said last week that Tokyo’s plan was safe and met international safety standards. environmental security.
Japan plans to discharge sewage this summer.
Pyongyang’s statement is the latest in a series of concerns raised by neighboring countries like South Korea, China and the Pacific Islands – all of which have raised fears of potential damage to the environment and public health.
Chinese customs authorities said on Friday that a ban on food imports from 10 Japanese prefectures, including Fukushima, would remain in place and strengthen inspections to monitor “radioactive substances, to ensure the safety of food imports Japanese in China”.
The UN approval did little to reassure fishermen and locals still affected by the 2011 disaster.
Speaking to CNN in a recent interview in Tokyo, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said he had met with Japanese fishing groups and local mayors and acknowledged their fears.
“My disposition … is to listen and explain in a way that addresses all those concerns they have,” he said. “When you visit Fukushima, it’s quite impressive, I would even say disturbing, to look at all these reservoirs, more than a million tons of water that contain radionuclides – imagining that it will be released into the ocean. So all kinds of fears come into play, and they need to be taken seriously, addressed and explained.
The IAEA said there was no better option to deal with the massive accumulation of sewage collected since the disaster.
“We have been reviewing this baseline policy for over two years. We evaluated it against the highest standards that exist,” Grossi said. “And we’re quite certain of what we’re saying and the scheme we’ve come up with.”
The 2011 disaster caused the plant’s reactor cores to overheat and contaminated the facility’s water with highly radioactive materials.
Since then, new water has been pumped in to cool the fuel debris in the reactors. Soil and rainwater also seeped in, creating more radioactive wastewater now measuring 1.32 million metric tons – enough to fill more than 500 Olympic-size swimming pools.
“Relocation necessary”
Japanese authorities have argued that the release is necessary as space is running out to contain the contaminated materials – and the move would allow for the full decommissioning of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
International scientists have expressed concern to CNN, saying there is insufficient evidence for long-term safety and saying the release could lead to the gradual buildup of tritium – a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that cannot be removed from wastewater – into marine ecosystems and food chains. , a process called bioaccumulation.
For more news and newsletters on CNN, create an account on CNN.com