Protesters rally in Seoul over Japan’s Fukushima water release

Around 1,000 people from South Korea’s main opposition party and civil groups have staged a protest in downtown Seoul.

The protest, on Saturday 26 August, is against Japan’s discharge of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean.

The controversial project began on Thursday, amid fresh and fierce criticism from China which slammed it as “selfish and irresponsible”.

The decades-long project was approved two years ago by the Japanese government and given the greenlight by the UN nuclear watchdog last month.

The discharge is a key step in a long and difficult process of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi plant, including the removal of molten fuel.

The power plant was destroyed in March 2011 when a massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake generated powerful tsunami waves that caused the meltdowns of three of its reactors.