South Korea, Seoul:

Japan’s plan to launch handled water from the Fukushima nuclear plant would have “negligible consequences” for South Korea, Seoul mentioned Friday because it tries to assuage rising public concern.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) this week gave the inexperienced mild for a decades-long challenge to discharge collected water from the plant, which was devastated by an earthquake and a tsunami that hit the japanese coast of Japan in 2011.

But the plan has encountered widespread public opposition and protests in South Korea, and even panic-buying of salt based mostly on fears that the Fukushima water would pollute the ocean and the salt sourced from seawater.

South Korea performed its personal separate evaluate of Tokyo’s plan, which discovered Japan will meet or exceed key worldwide requirements, coverage coordination minister Bang Moon-kyu advised reporters at a press convention Friday.

The research, which centered on whether or not the discharge would have an effect on South Korean waters, discovered it might have “negligible consequences”, the minister mentioned.

It would take as much as 10 years for the handled water launched from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean to flow into again close to the Korean peninsula, Bang mentioned.

“It is projected to have a radiation level approximately 1/100,000 of the average level during normal times” when the handled waters come again close to the Korean waters, he added.

IAEA head Rafael Grossi will go to Seoul from Friday, however the company’s evaluate has not alleviated robust opposition in South Korea over the discharge plan, with some opposition lawmakers even occurring starvation strike in protest.

“Japan wants to release the wastewater into the sea because it’s the easiest and cheapest way to do so,” Woo Won-shik, an MP who has been on starvation strike on the parliament in Seoul since June 26, advised AFP.

– Decommissioning over a long time –

Several of the reactors on the Fukushima Daiichi plant went into meltdown after cooling techniques have been overwhelmed by an enormous 2011 tsunami.

The ensuing nuclear accident was the worst since Chernobyl, and the clean-up has lasted greater than a decade, with most areas declared off-limits resulting from radiation now reopened.

Decommissioning the plant itself will take a long time extra, however the facility’s operator TEPCO faces the quick downside of greater than 1.33 million cubic metres of water collected on the positioning.

The water is a mix of groundwater, rain that seeps into the world, and water used for cooling.

TEPCO and Japan’s authorities wish to launch the handled liquid, diluted with seawater, by way of a pipe extending a kilometre from the coast the place the plant sits.

But South Korean MPs and civic teams declare there are a number of options which can be safer however costlier, similar to burying the handled water deep underground or vaporising it.

Since taking energy final 12 months, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has sought to bury the historic hatchet with Japan on points together with wartime compelled labour as he seeks nearer regional safety cooperation within the face of rising nuclear threats from North Korea.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)