opinion

Japan continues to pour nuclear-contaminated water into the Pacific despite the strong opposition and protest from the international community.

From October 17 to November 4, it diluted about 7 800 tons of nuclear waste water with sea water and discharged it into the sea about 1 km away through a submarine tunnel. It was the sixth discharge of nuclear-contaminated water this year and the tenth from August last year, and the total amount reached nearly 80 000 tons.

Experts have already warned that the dumping of radioactive-contaminated water in Japan might cause marine pollution by radioactive substances and, moreover, seriously harm food safety and human health.

Radioactive substances in the nuclear waste water released by Japan will reportedly spread to the most waters of the Pacific in 57 days and to the waters all over the world ten years later. That is, the marine environment of the whole world will be contaminated by radioactive substances. This is the argument of the academic circles.

The international community and the locals are becoming increasingly critical of the moves of the Japanese authorities, demanding a halt to the dumping of nuclear waste water and a ban on import of marine products from Japan and saying that the Pacific is not a sewer of Japan.

The nuclear-contaminated water discarded by Japan contains a large amount of extremely dangerous radioactive substances that cause leukemia, thyroid cancer, myeloma and others.

Since the start of dumping of nuclear-contaminated water, the concentration of tritium (a radioactive substance) in seawater near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has risen markedly over the past and such incidents as the death of fish in shoal have been occurring in succession.

Nevertheless, Japan makes such disjointed remarks that the nuclear waste water is safe as it is diluted in sea water and the concentration of tritium in the surrounding waters is much lower than the standard level of the country. And hosting the "summit of the Pacific island countries", it begs the participants to “understand” its release of radioactive-contaminated water into sea.

As is known, Japan plans to release nuclear waste water again in February next year.

It is indeed a shameless act peculiar to Japan aiming to meet its own interests, irrespective of whether it infringes upon the life and security of mankind or not and whether the ecological environment of the earth is destroyed by it or not.

Such impudent behaviour of the Japanese authorities to fulfil their selfish purpose even by bringing nuclear disaster to humankind can never be tolerated and Japan will have to pay dearly for it.