Tokyo Electric Power Company (9501.T) (Tepco) started releasing on Thursday more treated radioactive water from Japan’s wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, as part of a plan that has caused tension with neighbouring China.
The discharge plan kicked off in August in a key step towards decommissioning the plant, which suffered meltdowns after being hit by a tsunami in 2011 in the world’s worst such nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years earlier.
The release that began on Thursday morning will run for about 17 days, as about 7,800 cubic metres (275,454 cubic feet) of the water is discharged into the Pacific Ocean, Tepco said in a statement.
“We started the release of the treated water into the ocean,” it added.
Although nuclear authorities, including the United Nations watchdog, have said the plan will have a negligible impact on humans and the environment, it has still angered some neighbours, particularly China.
The initial release late in August triggered a blanket ban on Japanese seafood products by China, Hong Kong, and Macau. There was also a deluge of harassment calls to Japanese businesses and offices believed to originate from China.
The utility had received more than 6,000 calls from abroad between August 24 and 27, Junichi Matsumoto, the official overseeing the release, told a news conference on Wednesday.
