STORY: Japanese people rally against planned release of Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water into sea
DATELINE: June 22, 2023
LENGTH: 00:02:00
LOCATION: FUKUSHIMA, Japan
CATEGORY: ENVIRONMENT

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the rally
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (Japanese): TATSUKO OKAWARA, Fukushima Prefecture resident
3. SOUNDBITE 2 (Japanese): CHIYO ODA, Organizer of the event
4. SOUNDBITE 3 (Japanese): MASUKO EIICHI, Fukushima Prefecture resident
4. SOUNDBITE 4 (Japanese): TATSUKO OKAWARA, Fukushima Prefecture resident

STORYLINE:

Nearly 100 Japanese people rallied on Tuesday outside the Fukushima Prefectural Government Office to voice their strong opposition to the latter's stance on discharging radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

SOUNDBITE 1 (Japanese): TATSUKO OKAWARA, Fukushima Prefecture resident
"The mountains and rivers will never return to what they were like in the past, and the radiation will not disappear easily. But this country puts money above all else, above life and love."

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant's operator, began trialing the equipment for discharging the nuclear-contaminated water into the Pacific on June 12.

The test run of the discharge facility is expected to finish on June 26. The nuclear wastewater release led by the Japanese government seems to have entered the countdown.

SOUNDBITE 2 (Japanese): CHIYO ODA, Organizer of the event
"The government says every day that the trial operation will end soon, making everyone feel that the ocean discharge is an established fact, and wants us to give up. But it is wrong in the first place to discharge nuclear-contaminated water into the sea, and there are still places for the water storage tanks, so it has not reached the point where it must be discharged."

SOUNDBITE 3 (Japanese): MASUKO EIICHI, Fukushima Prefecture resident
"The nuclear-contaminated water can be diluted, but the total amount of nuclear pollutants discharged remains unchanged. This is something that even schoolchildren understand. Moreover, there are not only the radioactive element tritium in the water, but also 57 kinds of radioactive substances, such as cesium and strontium, which cannot be removed."

SOUNDBITE 4 (Japanese): TATSUKO OKAWARA, Fukushima Prefecture resident
"Nuclear-contaminated water must not be discharged into the sea. It is a crime, a crime against all living beings on earth. They should never do this."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Fukushima, Japan.
(XHTV)