AFP
This handout photo taken on August 22 and released by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) shows sampling from the upper-steam storage during preparations for the initial discharge of treated water at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture.
The final preparations to discharge wastewater from the crippled Fukushima power plant in Japan began on Wednesday, its operator said, a day before the scheduled release into the Pacific Ocean.
Tokyo had announced on Tuesday that the operation into the Pacific would begin on Thursday, prompting an angry response from China and partial import bans on Japanese seafood by China's Hong Kong and Macau.
The operator of the plant, TEPCO, said on Tuesday that it diluted a cubic meter of the waste water with around 1,200 cubic meters of seawater and allowed it to flow into position in a pipe.
This water will be tested and then from Thursday released into the sea together with more water stored at the site that will be transferred and diluted, TEPCO said in a statement.
The Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station was knocked out by a massive earthquake and tsunami that killed around 18,000 people in March 2011, sending three of its reactors into meltdown.
TEPCO has since collected 1.34 million cubic meters of water – almost 540 Olympic swimming pools' worth – used to cool what remains of the still highly radioactive reactors, mixed with groundwater and rain.
A special system has filtered out all radioactive nuclides except for tritium, levels of which will be well within safe limits, according to TEPCO.
原文地址：http://english.sina.com/world/2023-08-23/detail-imziemka3418187.shtml