S.Korea Urges IAEA to Verify Fukushima Wastewater Safety

Vienna – South Korea urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday to verify whether radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan is property treated before its planned release into the ocean.

“We asked the IAEA to play an active role in ensuring transparency and verifying safety during the entire process,” Chung Kee-yong, the Korean foreign ministry’s environmental director, was quoted as saying in a press release.

The contaminated water, which has been an issue of concern since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami damaged the nuclear plant, is stored in special tanks with limited volume. The level of radioactive water continues to rise and the Japanese authorities have been looking for a solution to this problem for several years.

In December, Japan warned that it was running out of storage capacity and would release the water used to cool the Fukushima Daiichi reactor into the Pacific in 2021, prompting concerns of pollution among neighbors.