It has been 12 years since the Fukushima nuclear accident occurred due to a massive earthquake in Japan.
The Japanese government has announced that they will release contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea as planned this year.
Although they claim it will be safe after being processed through purification facilities, concerns are mounting among neighboring countries as well as Japanese citizens.
SBS reporter Park Sang-jin visited the Fukushima area and found that fishermen in Soma city are worried that the planned release of contaminated water will affect their catch of fish such as sea bream and mackerel.
Some residents are concerned that if the water is released, Fukushima prefecture will be seen as a discarded area in Japan for the next 30 years or more.
The government plans to release the water after filtering out most of the radioactive substances through a purification system, and diluting the remaining tritium to a concentration of less than 1/40 in seawater.
However, a survey of residents in 50 villages in four prefectures around the Fukushima nuclear power plant showed that 66% of them did not believe the government’s measures to release the contaminated water were sufficient.
The fear of releasing the nuclear-contaminated water into the sea is increasing, and it remains to be seen how this issue will be resolved.
