SEOUL (Xinhua/Reuters) – Thousands of South Korean fishermen, activists and politicians held a protest rally in central Seoul on Saturday, condemning Japan’s dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean.
The participants shouted “Immediately stop dumping radioactive wastewater into the ocean” and “Japan must store nuclear-contaminated wastewater on its soil,” urging the South Korean government to file a lawsuit with the International Tribunal against the Japanese government.
The rally came after Japan started discharging the first batch of radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Thursday.
“Even if fishermen catch blue crabs, merchants do not take them even after their price plunged by more than half. Wholesale marine products markets (in Seoul, Busan and other cities) are seeing business slack,” Kim Young-bok, a 63-year-old fisherman from the southwest coastal county of Yeonggwang, said during the rally.
Kim said Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who was committing crimes against humanity, should immediately stop the wastewater discharge that would bring catastrophe to all humankind around the world.
Standing beside his mother, an eight-year-old boy said he could not understand why Japan dumped the wastewater into the ocean shared by other countries, while a 10-year-old girl said she could not go for a swim in the sea due to the marine dumping.
“I feel very sorry for South Korean people because Japan, where I was born, dumped radioactive wastewater into the ocean,” said Yuji Hosaka, a professor at Sejong University in Seoul.
Hosaka urged Tokyo to opt for other approaches, such as storing the wastewater in large water tanks for more than 100 years, which was proposed in 2017 but ignored by the Japanese government.
“If it’s safe and unproblematic, why would Japan not store (the wastewater) on its land but dump it into the Pacific Ocean, the well of the world, to worry everyone and damage everyone’s health?” said Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party.
Lee called the wastewater dumping a “provocation against humanity” and a “declaration of war” against all countries around the Pacific Ocean, urging Tokyo to immediately stop the discharge threatening the safety of people around the world.
Japan’s fisheries agency, however, has said fish tested in waters around the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant did not contain detectable levels of the radioactive isotope tritium, Kyodo news service reported on Saturday.
The agency plans to announce test results daily.
Tepco said on Friday seawater near the plant contained less than 10 becquerels of tritium per liter, below its self-imposed limit of 700 becquerels and far below the World Health Organization’s limit of 10,000 becquerels for drinking water.
Tony Hooker, director of the Centre for Radiation Research Education and Innovation at the University of Adelaide, said the water released from the Fukushima plant is safe.
“It certainly is well below the World Health Organization drinking water guidelines,” he said.
Despite clarification, more than 700 Japanese food exporters are affected by China’s suspension of seafood imports from Japan after the release of water.
According to the Tokyo-based Teikoku Databank, 727 Japanese companies export food products to China, accounting for about 8 percent of all Japanese firms shipping goods to China.
The report also said 316 Japanese firms export foods to Hong Kong, which announced its own ban on Japanese seafood imports from 10 regions after the Fukushima water release.