South Korea says it will never import seafood from Japan's Fukushima disaster

Beijing, March 30 (Sputnik) -- The South Korean president's office said on March 30 that the South Korean government will never import Marine products from Fukushima.

According to Yonhap news Agency, the South Korean presidential office made the remarks in response to public concerns over the import of seafood products from Japan's Fukushima. The South Korean presidential office said in a press release on Tuesday morning that the government would not change its stance of putting the public's health and safety first on the import of Japanese seafood products.

Meanwhile, Yonhap News Agency quoted Japanese media as saying that Japan requested Korea to lift its ban on the import of seafood from Fukushima at the Korea-Japan summit held on April 16.

On April 13, 2021, the Japanese government officially decided to discharge treatment water from Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea. The treatment water contains tritium, a radioactive substance that cannot be removed technically, and the discharge time is expected to last 20 to 30 years.

On March 11, 2011, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami caused the worst accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant since Chernobyl. Some areas are still uninhabitable after the accident. According to the assessment of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, it will take 40 years from the moment of the tragedy to finally eliminate the consequences of the accident at the plant and dismantle the reactors.