Tokyo, Aug 27 : The Japanese are receiving numerous insulting phone calls, allegedly from China, over Tokyo’s decision to start the release of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant (NPP), the Japanese Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, adding that it urged Beijing to take steps to prevent the incidents from happening again.
“After the ALPS-treated water was started to be discharged from the nuclear power plant on August 24, there were registered numerous cases of phone calls with complaints and insults about the discharge, presumably coming from China. Similar cases were recorded in China itself regarding Japanese institutions,” the ministry said.
The ministry urged the Chinese government to take the necessary measures and do everything possible to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens and Japanese diplomatic missions in China.
In addition, Tokyo calls on Beijing to “disseminate accurate information on the release of water in order to prevent incidents from escalating into something more serious,” the ministry added.
On Thursday, Japan started dumping the treated water from the Fukushima NPP into the Pacific Ocean, having diluted it with sea water in advance. TEPCO claimed to have purified the water of all radionuclides except tritium, which was still within the permitted limit.
Tokyo said earlier in the year that it had to discharge the treated water as it urgently needed to free up space at the disabled NPP. The move faced criticism from a number of countries, including China, South Korea and North Korea, who fear radioactive contamination. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Tokyo’s activities were consistent with international safety standards and that the wastewater would have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment.
In March 2011, the Fukushima NPP had three of its reactors melt down after the nation was shaken by a magnitude 9 earthquake followed by a massive tsunami. Fukushima is considered the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl accident in 1986.
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