SOMA: The US envoy to Japan feasted on fish from Fukushima on Thursday (Aug 31), saying that water discharged from the crippled nuclear plant was safer than that “dumped” by Chinese atomic facilities.
China banned all seafood imports from its neighbour last week after Japan began releasing wastewater from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean, accusing Tokyo of treating the ocean like a “sewer”.
“Japan over the decade has done exactly the right things in the right way. International scientific rigour, fully transparent, and inviting the international community to monitor their progress cleaning the water,” Ambassador Rahm Emanuel said as he visited the area devastated by the 2011 tsunami and nuclear catastrophe.
“Water from this area is safer than (the water which) the four plants in China dumps untreated into the ocean,” he said.
The water being released from Fukushima has been filtered of all radioactive elements except tritium, according to plant operator TEPCO.
Tritium levels are within safe limits and below that released by nuclear power stations in their normal operation, including in China, TEPCO says.
Emanuel, 63, ate a plateful of raw slices of flounder, tuna and bass at a local restaurant before buying more fish and locally grown peaches from a supermarket.
Source: CNA
