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At the Tokyo Olympics, athletes swim in the sea, and Japan's Greenpeace says Japan plans to release 1 million tons of polluted water from Fukushima's nuclear power plant. One million tons can affect Korea.

Reporter Kim Kwan-jin.

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Contribution to The Economist by Sean Bernie, Senior Peace Specialist at Greenpeace.

"The Abe government is trying to release more than one million tons of high-level radioactive contaminated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in the Pacific," Sean Bernie said.

"If contaminated water circulates through ocean currents, it is difficult for Korea to escape radiological hazards."

One million tons of contaminated water can be diluted by pouring 770 million tons of water over 17 years.

The Japanese government has been purifying radioactive contaminated water and storing it in large tanks.

However, while polluted water continued to accumulate and exceeded 900,000 tons, it was attempted to be dumped at sea.

In this situation, Greenpeace believes that the Japan Atomic Energy Advisory Committee has recently been encouraging the discharge of polluted water.

[Jangmari / Greenpeace Campaigner: We recommend that discharge is the cheapest and quickest way. The Japanese government has not made any investment plans or plans for long-term storage.

In fact, if Japan is forced to discharge polluted water, we do not have to take any measures.

Although there is an international ocean dumping convention, there are no grounds for sanctions if you start to release polluted water from land.

As controversy escalated, the Fukushima Shimbun reported that plans to expand tanks for long-term storage were being considered.

However, contaminated water will continue to generate, and after mid-2022, the tanks will be full again and controversy will continue.