Korean nuclear experts arrive in Japan as protests continue

Three Korean nuclear safety experts arrived in Japan on Sunday to participate in monitoring radioactive water being released from the ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant amid protests in both countries against the ongoing discharge.

Protestors hold up placards demanding that Japan retract its decision to release radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant at a rally in Jung District, central Seoul, on Saturday. [YONHAP]

Three Korean nuclear safety experts arrived in Japan on Sunday to participate in monitoring radioactive water being released from the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant amid protests in both countries against the ongoing discharge.

The experts were dispatched from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety and plan to visit the Fukushima office of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), according to a Korean government official.

Their trip came during a weekend of protests in both countries against Japan’s decision to release part of the radioactive water that has accumulated in the process cooling the nuclear core of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which suffered a meltdown due to an earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan in 2011.

Thousands of people participated in a Saturday rally next to City Hall in downtown Seoul, organized by some 90 civic groups, to protest the radioactive water discharge.

Lawmakers from four political parties, including the liberal Democratic Party (DP) and its leader Lee Jae-myung, also appeared at the protest, where they chanted slogans and held up placards calling on Japan to suspend the water release and denounced the Yoon Suk Yeol administration for its perceived acquiescence to the discharge.

Democratic Party leader Jae-myung claps his hands during a rally against Japan's ongoing release of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. [YONHAP]

During his remarks at the rally, Lee claimed that Japan had crossed a red line by “discharging contaminated nuclear wastewater,” which he called tantamount to “a declaration of war against countries bordering the Pacific Ocean.”

The DP leader, who on Friday claimed that Tokyo had “chosen the path of an environmental war criminal,” said at the rally that Japan should apologize to Korea, which he claimed “is suffering the most damage” as the island country’s closest neighbor.

He also accused the Yoon administration of giving Japan crucial diplomatic backing to release the water, continuing earlier criticism against Yoon and his administration for “not saying a single word” against Japan’s decision.

Lee’s labelling of the president as an “accomplice” to the Japanese water discharge follows the DP’s well-worn playbook of accusing Seoul’s conservative government of cozying up to Tokyo during the two countries’ diplomatic rapprochement and efforts to deepen security cooperation.

Four Korean lawmakers, including Reps. Yang Woo Won-shik and Yang Yiwonyoung from the DP and Rep. Kang Eun-mi of the minor Justice Party, traveled to Japan over the weekend to attend a Sunday afternoon protest in Fukushima organized by the Social Democratic Party of Japan against the water release.

The DP has seized on the controversy surrounding the Fukushima water discharge to pillory the Yoon administration, which has not actively opposed the water discharge after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Korea’s own nuclear experts concluded the impact on the environment and human health would be negligible.

In June, the Korean Nuclear Society issued a statement that the release of treated radioactive water from Fukushima would not affect the health of the public or Korea’s marine ecosystem, noting that “there was no recognizable increase in radioactivity over the past 12 years due to the effects of the [changing] directions of ocean currents and the wastewater diluted in the ocean,” despite “a great amount of high-concentration radioactive wastewater had been released into the Pacific Ocean when the Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred in 2011.”

But perhaps mindful of domestic fears and deep-rooted Korean mistrust of Japan, Seoul has also not expressed unequivocal acceptance of the ongoing water release, with Korean officials only saying that its experts have found “no technical or scientific problems” with the release.

The conservative People Power Party (PPP), which is aligned with the government, has castigated the DP for fanning fears over the water release.

Rep. Yun Jae-ok, who serves as the PPP’s floor leader, urged the DP to cooperate in putting together support measures for fishermen during a party meeting on Friday.

“The DP is pouring all its energy into fearmongering over the radioactive water,” Yun said.

“It should stop holding useless protests outside the National Assembly and come to the negotiation table and gather opinions on how to support fishermen.

PPP leader Kim Gi-hyeon also called on the DP to “stop propagating false claims” regarding the safety of locally caught seafood, emphasizing that such claims would only damage the livelihoods of Koreans employed in the domestic fishing industry.

During a daily briefing on the Fukushima issue on Friday, Park Ku-yeon, the first deputy chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, said that the discharge “is proceeding stably as originally planned so far, and it is understood that there are no abnormal situations.”

Park stressed that the Korean government is conducting its own monitoring and analysis of the water release process, and that Seoul and Tokyo have agreed to share information immediately through a hotline should abnormalities be detected.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries will also “significantly expand tests on farmed seafood” to ensure their safety, according to Vice Oceans Minister Park Sung-hoon, who also spoke at the briefing.

“The government will do its utmost to continue monitoring so that there will be no impact on people’s safety and health,” Park Ku-yeon said.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which operates the Fukushima plant, as well as the IAEA and the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, have all made updates on the ongoing discharge available on their websites.

Tepco’s hourly updates include information on radiation levels and the level of tritium present in the water being released into the Pacific Ocean.

Tritium is one of the few radioactive nuclides that cannot be removed with current technology from the water used to cool the Fukushima plant’s nuclear core.

Prior to being released, Tepco dilutes the tritium-laden radioactive water with seawater so that it contains less than 1,500 becquerels of tritium per liter, or one-fortieth the amount that is considered safe by Japanese standards. A becquerel is a unit of radioactivity.

Japan’s Fisheries Agency announced Saturday that no detectable amounts of tritium were found in the first fish caught in waters near the plant since the release, while the country’s Environment Ministry said Sunday that tritium levels at 11 water sample collection points located within 40 kilometers of the Fukushima plant were under 7-8 becquerels per liter.

The World Health Organization considers water with less than 10,000 becquerels per liter to be safe for human consumption.

The current radioactive water release, which began at 1 p.m. Thursday, is scheduled to last 17 days and is the first of four separate discharges planned for this year.

Approximately 460 tons of radioactive water are being released daily into the Pacific Ocean via an undersea tunnel that extends 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the Fukushima plant, with a total of 7,800 tons of water to be discharged during the current round.

That amount is approximately 2.3 percent of the total 1.3 million tons of radioactive water in 1,000 tanks at the Fukushima plant — enough to fill 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The Japanese government and experts estimate that it will take around three decades to release the water as part of the plant’s decommissioning process.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]