Interview: Japan's nuclear water dumping to worsen marine contamination in Pacific: S. Korean green activist

SEOUL, April 13 (Xinhua) -- Japan's decision to dump radioactive waste water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean will continue to worsen the marine contamination in the ocean, a South Korean green activist said Tuesday.

"Japan already contaminated and did damage to the ocean with the Fukushima power plant accident," Ahn Jae-hun, energy and climate change director at the Korea Federation for Environmental Movements, a green advocacy group in Seoul, told Xinhua.

Citing the government data from Japan, Ahn said a far higher level of radioactive isotope has been detected at the fishery products coming from Fukushima Prefecture than other areas in Japan.

"Situations will continue to deteriorate further" as the nuclear waste water, dumped from the Fukushima prefecture in northeastern Japan, will circle around the entire Pacific Ocean in the long run, though the effect may be different according to a distance away from Japan, the environmentalist noted.

Ahn urged Japan to disclose relevant information to neighboring countries, including China and South Korea, given that Tokyo's opacity fueled uncertainty and anxiety over the contamination.

Calling the irradiated sewage discharge "irresponsible," he warned that once the contaminated water flows into the ocean and the marine ecosystem is destroyed, it can never be retrieved and restored.

The Japanese government decided earlier in the day to discharge the radioactive waste water, believed to reach 1.25 million tons, into the Pacific Ocean without advance consultations with neighboring countries.

South Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement on Monday that the government is seriously concerned about the plan by the Japanese cabinet as it was done without sufficient consultations with neighbors.

The ministry vowed to pay close attention to Japan's nuclear water disposal procedures while strengthening cooperation with the international community.