Fishermen in Gwadar gathered on the streets on Tuesday against the Japanese Tokyo Power Company’s decision to dump water contaminated with lethal radiation into the sea. The protestors gathered in front of the Gwadar Press Club, saying that the fishing industry has is being jeopardized.
Addressing the protestors, the speakers said that the fishermen are already troubled by the “trawler mafia” who are fishing indiscriminately and in massive numbers. They said that the sea is being looted of its resources, and if the practices are not halted, fishermen around the world will have to starve.
The fishermen said that a destructive earthquake and an ensuing tsunami struck Japan in 2011, resulting in devastation on a large scale. The disaster also destroyed the Fukushima Nuclear Power plant located in Okuma and the reactor started to leak. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) – an electric utility holding servicing Japan’s Yamanashi prefecture, where the nuclear plant is located – decided that because the plant is bordering the sea, the water should be flown in so that the reactors could be sealed and the radiation contained. TEPCO estimated that by 2022, all the storage tanks in the nuclear plant will be filled. The Japanese government has now decided to dump all this water, contaminated with radiation, into the sea.
Experts say that the TEPCO considered a variety of other options before settling on this one, including building more storage tanks, burying the atomic waste or dumping it in the sea after it has been neutralized or evaporating. But they eventually opted for the cheapest option, which is dumping the contaminated water in the open sea.
The fishermen say that the TEPCO has violated the security protocol of another nuclear plant in the past. Considering its chequered history, how can the Japanese government conclude that their decision is right? They said that if the contaminated water is channelled in the sea, the fishing industry in the region will be heavily affected.