Japan Press Weekly

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2013 September 25 - October 1 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

JCP Shiokawa highlights deception in Abe’s ‘perfectly contained’ remark

Japanese Communist Party parliamentarian Shiokawa Tetsuya on September 27 rebutted PM Abe’s remark that the effect from radioactive water leaking from the Fukushima nuclear power plant was “perfectly contained”.

This came out during Shiokawa’s question to Tokyo Electric Power Company President Hirose Naomi, who was summoned by the Diet as a sworn witness, at a House of Representatives Economy and Industry Committee special session on the issue of radioactive water leakage at the Fukushima plant.

When Shiokawa questioned Hirose about how much radioactive water in total leaked into the sea, Hirose was unable to provide exact figures. He only said that among 800 tons of groundwater flowing through the plant on a daily basis, 400 tons of that water is going into the sea, and added, “Not the entire 400 tons is contaminated.”

The JCP representative cited an expert’s view that the contaminated water could flow into the sea outside the plant’s port through deep underground strata below the plant. He asked if TEPCO has any information regarding this view. The TEPCO president replied, “We will inspect deep under the ground.”

It is apparent that the plant operator has no concrete data regarding the leakage of radioactive water into the sea.

Stating, “There is a possibility that radioactive water is continuously flowing into the sea,” Shiokawa criticized TEPCO for being unable to handle the tainted water problem because it failed to grasp the extent of the tainted water leakage. He claimed that the government should hold the responsibility to resolve the leakage problem with the aim of protecting the ocean from further radioactive contamination in mind.

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On the same day at a plenary session of the Fukushima Prefectural Assembly, Japanese Communist Party assemblyperson Miyamoto Shizue demanded that the prefecture urge the state to establish a basic principle of keeping the ocean from being polluted with radioactive substances.

A prefectural government official said that it will call on the central government to address the radioactive water problem speedily but avoided taking a stance of protecting the ocean from radioactive pollution.