TOKYO, May 17 (Xinhua) — In the run-up to the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Japan’s western metropolis of Hiroshima, massive numbers of Japanese have taken to the streets in Tokyo to protest in opposition to the federal government’s transfer to discharge nuclear wastewater into the ocean.
They additionally handed a petition to the Japanese authorities, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the parliament, demanding instant suspension of the dumping plan.
On Tuesday morning, residents from prefectural areas together with Tokyo, Fukushima and Nagasaki, rallied in entrance of the TEPCO headquarters, about only one kilometer away from Kasumigaseki the place Japan’s central authorities departments collect.
Chanting slogans comparable to “Don’t pollute the ocean,” “Protect fisheries” and “Guard the future” in unison, the group held banners and flags with slogans that learn “Don’t discharge polluted water into the sea,” “Don’t pollute the ocean for all,” and “The sea is not the toilet for nuclear power plants.”
Hit by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and an ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear energy plant suffered core meltdowns that launched radiation, leading to a level-7 nuclear accident, the best on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.
The plant has been producing a large quantity of water tainted with radioactive substances from cooling down the nuclear gas within the reactor buildings, which at the moment are saved in about 1,000 storage tanks.
In 2015, the Japanese authorities and TEPCO made an settlement with fisheries cooperative associations of each Fukushima prefecture and the nation that they won’t proceed with any wastewater disposal “without the understanding of relevant parties.”
However, the Japanese authorities introduced in April 2021 its controversial plan to launch diluted wastewater into the Pacific Ocean and acknowledged in January this yr that the discharge will begin “in the spring or summer.”
Kazuyoshi Sato, co-director of KOREUMI, a Japanese residents’ convention to sentence additional air pollution of the ocean and one of many rallies’ organizers stated on Tuesday the Japanese authorities has been making every kind of excuses, stressing that different discharge strategies wouldn’t work, and so they couldn’t protect nuclear-polluted water on land.
Sato, additionally a resident of Fukushima prefecture, added that the Japanese authorities is now spending tens of billions of yen to publicize the discharge plan by way of numerous media platforms, however the public, not satisfied of such flawed propaganda, is not going to comply with the choice.
“Through today’s actions, we are raising our voice against the dumping plan to the whole world,” he stated.
Tokyo resident Kouzou Seki, who’s initially from Fukushima and has participated in a number of anti-discharge rallies, advised Xinhua that everybody, from members of the native fishing affiliation to native residents in Fukushima, is in opposition to the dumping plan, “but the government forced the decision anyway.”
“We have to stop the discharge,” he stated, including that it isn’t too late to start out contemplating and growing correct strategies as an alternative of the discharge plan.
At rallies held at TEPCO headquarters and the Members’ Office Buildings of the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Chiyo Oda, one other co-director of the group, learn and submitted a petition to related representatives, demanding them to abide by the settlement with native associations comparable to Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Co-operative Associations and to not discharge nuclear-polluted water into the ocean with out the understanding and consent of related events.
The petition required disclosure of knowledge such because the focus and complete quantity of all radionuclides and reassessment of the radiation’s affect on the marine surroundings and creatures.
It additionally demanded elementary countermeasures from TEPCO, comparable to exploring the development of huge water storage tanks for long-term nuclear-polluted water preservation and selling the sensible utility of tritium separation know-how.
On Tuesday night, about 500 protesters gathered in Hibiya Park, the place Takayuki Yani, a Fukushima resident who works within the fishing business, questioned if the federal government would dump the wastewater with none authorization by ignoring the earlier settlement.
According to him, radioactive substances within the wastewater nonetheless increase jitters, and marine merchandise from Fukushima suffered rejections by the market within the circumstances of earlier leaks of nuclear-contaminated water saved in tanks.
“This is unacceptable to us in the fishing industry and I think it is not understood by most relevant parties,” he stated.
Tuesday’s protests had been additionally supported by civic teams in South Korea. Esther Yu, who traveled from South Korea to attend the rally, advised Xinhua that they’re nervous concerning the launch of contaminated water into the ocean.
“We are very angry that the South Korean government now no longer actively opposes the plan and is even tolerant of it,” she stated.
It was previous seven o’clock at night time and the road lights had been simply starting to come back on. The protesters, chanting slogans, lined up and marched towards Tokyo’s Ginza.