Massive demonstration in Seoul. On Saturday August 26, tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital of South Korea to protest against the discharge of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.
This water was used to cool the reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, damaged since the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country in 2011. Highly radioactive, the water from these reactors is however treated and filtered before being discharged in the ocean.
If Tokyo multiplies the tests to prove that the radioactive impact of the rejected water is minimal, this operation does not stop worrying the neighboring countries. In South Korea, 80% of the population is hostile to it.
“If nuclear waters are so safe, why doesn’t Japan store them in its own territory instead of dumping them in the world’s sink, the Pacific Ocean, worrying everyone and harming health ? Diluting them won’t make them go away,” South Korean Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung said during Saturday’s protest.
Many of them are waiting for their government to exert pressure on Tokyo, like China, which announced last Thursday that it was suspending all imports of seafood products for “food security” reasons.