Korean experts conclude inspection of Fukushima plant

Diplomacy

Published: 25 May. 2023, 18:54

Korean experts conclude inspection of Fukushima plant

Yoo Guk-hee, chairman of the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, speaks with the press after he and 20 other Korean experts inspected facilities at the ruined Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

The group of Korean experts visiting the ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant this week concluded their inspection of the plant and its facilities on Wednesday.

"We saw all the facilities we were scheduled to see," said Yoo Guk-hee, chairman of the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission and head of the Korean group of experts visiting Fukushima in speaking with the press on Wednesday. "We will need to further analyses on the functions of these facilities."

The team was scheduled to meet with Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), and officials from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Thursday to ask for any follow-up information.

The 21-person team, consisting of experts from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety and the Korea Institute of Ocean Science, arrived in Japan earlier on Sunday to begin their visit, a result of an agreement struck between the leaders of both Korea and Japan during their summit meeting in Seoul earlier this month.

The team saw on Tuesday and Wednesday the Advanced Liquid Processing System that handles the treatment of contaminated water at the ruined plant, and the K4 tanks storing the treated radioactive water.

"The team inspected a lab in the chemical analysis building that analyzes the concentration of nuclide in the contaminated water," it said in a statement it issued on Wednesday. "The team also checked the water tanks and, in particular, the capacity of the seawater transfer pump, whose function is directly related to the dilution rate of tritium."

The plant's operator, Tepco, has said that all radioactive materials will be removed from the to-be-released water except tritium, which experts say is not harmful to human health in small amounts.

A massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011, destroying the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Japan plans to gradually release tons of treated radioactive water from the defunct power plant into the sea — a plan that was announced in 2021 and has been supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) but has drawn strong opposition from fishing communities both in Korea and Japan.

Korea, as a member of the IAEA, has been involved with the agency's oversight of Japan's planned release of the treated radioactive water. One of its scientists, Kim Hong-suk, a researcher at the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, is a member of the IAEA committee to monitor the release of the treated water.

The inspectional visit by Korea to the plant and its facilities was hailed by the members of the Yoon Suk Yeol government as an achievement amid reconciliatory gestures between the leaders of Korea and Japan. It was criticized, on the other hand, by liberal Democratic Party members as another concession the Yoon government was making to Japan without equal returns.

Yoon's historic summit with Kishida in Tokyo in March, the first of its kind in 12 years, took place after the Korean government proposed the establishment of a fund to compensate the Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor, in place of Japanese companies sued by the victims. Of the 15 plaintiffs engaged in these suits, 11 as of Thursday decided to take the Korean compensation instead.

The terminology surrounding the treated radioactive water has also attracted controversy.

While the Japanese government officially refers to the water as "treated water," Korean government officials have largely referred to the water as "contaminated water."

However, the Yoon administration will reportedly discuss the official terminology to be adopted by the Korean government going forward upon the return of the expert team from Fukushima.

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]