The third release of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea began Thursday, the plant operator said, with China and Russia’s opposition to the move unchanged since August.
The third stage of the release will continue until Nov. 20, Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported.
Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) said it started releasing 7,800 tonnes of water that had been used to cool reactors that went into meltdown after a 2011 deadly tsunami.
The fourth stage will start next March to release a total of about 31,200 tons of the water.
During the previous release, about 460 tons of treated water was released daily for 18 days.
From late August, the utility gradually began releasing the 540 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of wastewater that is being stored on the campus of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
The facility was running out of space to build more water tanks, and TEPCO needs to clear the area for the much more hazardous task of removing radioactive fuel and rubble from three stricken reactors.
Japan argues that the water being released is harmless and heavily diluted with seawater. It is also being released gradually over decades.
China, later joined by Russia, criticised the release and banned all Japanese seafood imports, saying that Japan was polluting the environment.
The plant has more than a million tons of treated wastewater to release over the course of a 30-year process.
Following an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, the Fukushima plant faced the largest nuclear accident since 1986 in Chernobyl, forcing it to shut down.
