REUTERS
October 5, 2023 at 16:02 JST
A view of locally caught seafood at the Hamanoeki Fish Market and Food Court in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, on Aug. 31. (Reuters)
MOSCOW--Russia said on Wednesday that Japan had failed to provide full information on the radioactive water being discharged from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant, despite repeated requests from both Moscow and Beijing.
Japan started releasing treated radioactive water from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean in August, and was heavily criticised by China, which immediately banned all seafood imports from Japan.
“We and China have repeatedly urged the Japanese side to show transparency and provide all interested states with full access to all information about the discharge of water from the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
“Japan has not done this,” Zakharova said. “Japan has failed to properly respond to these issues and to guarantee the absence of a threat, including a long-term one.”
A massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 triggered a nuclear meltdown at Fukushima - the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chornobyl 25 years earlier, in what was then Soviet Ukraine.
Japan says the release is safe, noting that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has concluded that the impact on people and the environment is “negligible”.
Russia is considering joining China in banning Japanese
seafood imports, a Russian regulator said last month.
Zakharova said most of Russia’s concerns would be “immediately removed if Tokyo stopped the process of draining its waste into the world’s ocean,” adding that China had expressed the same view.
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II