Deep distrust reason behind public anxiety

Consequences of Japan's toxic water release plan hard to verify, expert says

The deep-seated distrust of the Japanese government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, is behind public anxiety sparked by the plans to discharge nuclear-contaminated water into the ocean, said politicians and experts.

"TEPCO's long concealment of the fact that many nuclides exceeding the specified value could not be removed has resulted in a significant loss of credibility," said a statement issued by the Social Democratic Party national federation and the Social Democratic Party Fukushima prefectural federation in July.

The hydrogen and nuclear explosions at the Fukushima nuclear power plant caused an unprecedented core meltdown, and all kinds of nuclides, concrete, etc., were mixed together with groundwater and cooling water, and became a large amount of nuclear-contaminated water, the federations noted.