The beginning of the discharge of around 540 Olympic swimming pools' worth of water into the Pacific over several decades is a big step in decommissioning the still highly dangerous site 12 years after one of the world's worst nuclear accidents.
Live video provided by plant operator TEPCO showed engineers behind computer screens and an official saying -- after a countdown -- that the "valves near the seawater transport pumps are opening."
Monitors from the UN atomic watchdog, which has endorsed the plan, were due to be on site for the procedure, while TEPCO workers were scheduled to take water samples later on Thursday.
Ahead of the operation, about 10 people held a protest near the site and around 100 others gathered outside TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo, AFP journalists said.
"It's like dumping an atomic bomb in the ocean. Japan is the first country that was attacked with an atomic bomb in the world, and the prime minister of the country made this decision," said Kenichi Sato, 68.
China's environment ministry on Thursday blasted Japan's plan as "extremely selfish and irresponsible", saying it would "track and study" the impact on its waters.
- Multiple meltdowns -
With around 1,000 steel containers holding the water, TEPCO has said it needs to clear space for the removal of highly dangerous radioactive nuclear fuel and rubble from the wrecked reactors.
Three of the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi facility in northeastern Japan went into meltdown following a massive earthquake and tsunami that killed around 18,000 people in 2011.
Since then, TEPCO has collected 1.34 million cubic metres of water contaminated as it cooled the wrecked reactors, along with groundwater and rain that has seeped in.
TEPCO will carry out four releases of the treated water from Thursday until March 2024. The first discharge will take about 17 days.
About 5 trillion becquerels -- a measure of radioactivity -- of tritium will be released this fiscal year, TEPCO added.
Japan insists that all radioactive elements have been filtered out except the tritium, levels of which are harmless and lower than what is discharged by operational nuclear power plants, including in China.
This is backed by most experts.
"When released into the Pacific, the tritium is further diluted into a vast body of water and would quickly get to a radioactivity level which is not discernibly different from normal seawater," said Tom Scott from the University of Bristol in England.
"Hence, it poses very little risk and the risk itself decreases with time due to the relatively short radioactive half-life... meaning that the amount of tritium (and hence the risk) continually reduces."
- Sushi safety -
Not everyone is convinced, with environmental group Greenpeace saying that the filtration process is flawed, and China and Russia suggesting the water be vaporised and released into the atmosphere instead.
China has accused Japan of treating the Pacific like a "sewer", and even before the release, Beijing banned food imports from 10 out of 47 Japanese prefectures and imposed radiation checks.
Hong Kong and Macau, both Chinese territories, followed suit this week.
Restaurants in Beijing and Hong Kong serving sushi and sashimi are already reeling from the restrictions.
"About 80 percent of the seafood products we use come from Japan," Hong Kong caterer Jasy Choi, who runs a small kitchen for takeaway Japanese food, told AFP.
"If more than half of my Japan-imported ingredients are affected, then it would be difficult for me to continue to operate."
Analysts said that while China may have genuine safety concerns, its strong reaction is also at least in part motivated by its economic rivalry and frosty relations with Japan.
The South Korean government, which is seeking to improve ties with Japan, has not objected although many ordinary people are worried and have staged protests.
Social media posts in China and South Korea have included false claims about the release including doctored images of deformed fish with claims they were linked to Fukushima.
Fukushima's water release: what we know
Tokyo (AFP) Aug 24, 2023 -
Japan began releasing wastewater from the stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean on Thursday, 12 years after it suffered one of the world's worst atomic accidents.
Here is what we know about the discharge, how the water has been treated and concerns about the safety of the exercise:
- Why the operation? -
Around 100,000 litres (26,500 gallons) of water -- contaminated by cooling the plant's wrecked reactors plus groundwater and rain seeping in -- is collected at the site in northeastern Japan every day.
Some 1.34 million tonnes -- equivalent to almost 540 Olympic pools -- are now stored in around a thousand steel containers at the seaside site, and now there is no more space, authorities say.
Japan decided in 2021, after years of discussion, that it would release at most around 500,000 litres per day into the sea via a pipe one kilometre (0.6 miles) long.
The discharge will take around 30 years to complete. The release on Thursday was the first of four scheduled between now and the end of March.
- What has been done to the water? -
Plant operator TEPCO says that a special filtering system called ALPS has removed all radioactive elements -- including caesium and strontium -- except tritium.
TEPCO has said the water is diluted to reduce radioactivity levels to 1,500 becquerels per litre (Bq/L), far below the national safety standard of 60,000 Bq/L.
- Is that safe? -
Tony Hooker, a nuclear expert from the University of Adelaide, said that the level of tritium is well below the World Health Organization drinking water limit of 10,000 Bq/L.
"Tritium is regularly released from nuclear power facilities into waterways worldwide," Hooker told AFP.
"For decades, (there have been) no evidential detrimental environmental or health effects," he said.
UN atomic watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said the release meets international standards and "will not cause any harm to the environment".
- Does everyone agree? -
The overriding consensus among international experts appears to be that the operation is safe.
But Greenpeace says that the filtering technology does not work and that the IAEA "completely ignored the highly radioactive fuel debris that melted down and continues every day to contaminate ground water".
China has accused Japan of treating the Pacific like a "sewer". It said Thursday that the release was "extremely selfish and irresponsible".
Along with Russia, China had proposed vaporising the water and releasing the steam into the atmosphere instead.
Beijing in July banned food imports from 10 Japanese prefectures and imposed stringent radiation tests on food from the rest of the country. This week, Hong Kong and Macau followed suit.
While Seoul has not expressed objections, many South Koreans are alarmed and have been staging demonstrations -- and even panic-buying sea salt.
The release has also hit opposition in Japan itself, in particular from a fishing industry that fears its exports could plummet as consumers and governments shun Japanese seafood.
- What has Japan done to soothe concerns? -
The government has spent months trying to win over sceptics at home and abroad, with everything from study tours of Fukushima to live video of fish living in the wastewater.
Tokyo has also sought to counter disinformation being peddled online about the release, such as misrepresented photos of deformed fish and claims -- denied by Japan -- that it bribed the IAEA.
- What else needs to be done? -
The far more dangerous task is the removal of radioactive debris and highly dangerous nuclear fuel from the three reactors that went into meltdown in 2011.
TEPCO plans to use robots to remove the fuel but there are fears that radiation levels are so high that they could even disable the machines.
The whole gargantuan process is expected to take 30 to 40 years and cost around eight trillion yen ($55 billion).
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