Fukushima - Water
Posted: 26th May 2025
The United Nations (UN) human rights experts have written to the Japanese government to express their concerns about the release of more than one million metric tonnes of treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean. In August 2023, Japan began discharging wastewaster from about 1000 storage tanks of contaminated water collected after the earthquake and tsunami in 2011 that caused the meltdown of its Fukushima nuclear plant. In the formal communication, available publicly, UN Human Rights Council special rappoteurs addressed the the management of Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS)-treated wastewater from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS) by the Japan government and TEPCO (Tokio Electric Power), and the ongoing discharge of such waters into the Pacific Ocean. They said “we are alarmed that the implementation of contaminated water release operations of into the ocean may pose major environmental and human rights risks, exposing people, especially children, to threats of further contamination in Japan and beyond.”