Last August, TEPCO began releasing wastewater equivalent to 540 Olympic swimming pools into the Pacific.
Tokyo, Japan:
The operator of Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant said it suspended wastewater discharges from the plant on Friday after the earthquake, while stressing that the move was precautionary.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said a 5.8-magnitude earthquake struck the northeast coast of the Fukushima region, home to a nuclear power plant destroyed by the 2011 tsunami, at 00:14 am on Friday (1514 GMT on Thursday).
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said on X (former Twitter) about the water release process: “We have remotely confirmed that there are no abnormalities in the ALPS treated water dilution/discharge facilities, etc.”
But “for safety reasons, we have suspended operations at these facilities in accordance with predetermined operating procedures,” it said.
Japan’s nuclear regulator also said shortly after the quake that no abnormalities had been detected at either the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant or its sister plant Fukushima Daiichi.
Last August, TEPCO began releasing into the Pacific Ocean wastewater from about 540 Olympic swimming pools collected at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant since the 2011 accident, one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters.
The operation was recognized by the United Nations Atomic Energy Agency, and TEPCO said that all radioactive elements except tritium had been filtered out and the content of tritium was within safe limits.
But China and Russia criticized Japan for releasing seafood into the Pacific and banned imports of Japanese seafood, saying Japan was polluting the environment.
Hundreds of earthquakes occur in Japan every year, but the vast majority do not cause any damage.
There were no immediate reports of injuries from the latest shaking, and there were no tsunami warnings.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
