Moscow is closely monitoring the water discharge from the Fukushima nuclear power plant and expects that Japan will provide all the necessary information regarding this process, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik on Thursday.
"We are closely monitoring the situation unfolding and expect that the Japanese government will demonstrate full transparency regarding the impact of the discharge of water used to cool the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant’s reactor on the state of the environment, providing all the necessary information to the interested states, even going to the extent of possibily taking environmental samples at the dumping site," Zakharova said.
Japan’s decision to discharge treated nuclear-tainted water into the Pacific has sparked an uproar from South Korea and China, who fear radioactive contamination. The International Atomic Energy Agency argued that the treated wastewater will have a negligible radiological impact on people and the environment.
Tokyo said that it had to discharge the treated water as it urgently needed to free up space at the Fukushima facility. Japan initially planned to begin discharging water purified of all radionuclides except tritium into the ocean 0.6 miles from the station this spring. However, the deadline was pushed back to the summer of 2023 due to adverse weather conditions and other factors. The process is expected to take up to 30 years.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred on March 11, 2011. The plant was severely damaged by a magnitude 9 earthquake in the Pacific Ocean that triggered a massive tsunami, which pummeled the plant and caused three nuclear reactors to melt down. The accident is considered the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986 and has resulted in widespread contamination of local soil and water. The disaster left 22,200 people dead or missing.