Greenpeace said Thursday it is sending its Rainbow Warrior flagship to Japan to test seawater and marine life near the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant which is leaking radiation.
Greenpeace said Thursday it is sending its Rainbow Warrior flagship to
Japan to test seawater and marine life near the tsunami-hit
Fukushima
nuclear plant which is leaking radiation.
The ship has left Taiwan and is set to start testing as early as next
Wednesday, said the environmental activist group, which has also been
monitoring aerial and soil radiation and food produce near the atomic plant.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.TO), or Tepco, said Thursday that
some 520 tons of runoff which reached the sea from April 1 to 6 through a crack
in a storage pit had reached about 4,700 terabecquerels--20,000 times above the
plant's legal annual limit.
Tepco has also dumped 10,000 tons of lower-level radioactive water into the
Pacific
Ocean
to free up storage space for more highly contaminated runoff that has
resulted from weeks of emergency reactor dousing operations.
Greenpeace Japan executive director Junichi Sato said water testing was
important because "Japan relies heavily on the ocean to feed itself."
"Given the continual leaking of radioactive water into the marine
environment--including Tepco's release of huge quantities of contaminated
water--it is critical that independent testing is undertaken, in order to
assess the true extent of the contamination and the possible impacts on public
health and the food web," Sato said in a statement.
"We have informed
Japan
's
government and are currently working through the appropriate channels to ensure
we can add marine research to the radiation monitoring already carried by our
land-based teams in the
Fukushima
area."
Greenpeace launched its first Rainbow Warrior in 1978 and sent it to Pacific
waters on protest campaigns against
U.S.
and
French nuclear testing, before it was sunk by French agents at a
New
Zealand
port in 1985.
The Rainbow Warrior II was launched in 1989 and is now nearing its recommended
decommissioning date, after which it will be replaced by the purpose-built
Rainbow Warrior III, the group said.
Διαβάστε ακόμα
Τρι, 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 19:58
Τρι, 24 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 19:54
Τετ, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 18:32
Τετ, 18 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 18:27
Τρι, 17 Σεπτεμβρίου 2024 - 20:01