Japan described as extremely regrettable the fact that many cases of harassing phone calls made by China regarding the release of treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific have been reported.
Japan began discharging these waters on Thursday, taking a major step toward decommissioning the Fukushima plant that was hit by a tsunami that followed a powerful earthquake in 2011. China strongly opposes the action.
“Many harassing phone calls believed to be from China are being made in Japan (…) These developments are extremely regrettable and we are concerned,” government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said at a regular press briefing.
The harassing phone calls prompted Deputy Foreign Minister Masataka Okano to summon the Chinese ambassador to Japan to the foreign ministry, the Japanese foreign ministry said.
In a statement, the ministry noted that such calls are also being made to Japanese facilities in China and called on the Chinese government to take immediate appropriate action and guarantee the safety of Japanese citizens.
Fukushima city hall began receiving calls with country code 86, which corresponds to China, on Thursday, and those calls exceeded 200 the next day, overwhelming phone lines and disrupting the normal work of employees, a city official said.
On the same day, primary and secondary schools in the city, which is 60 kilometers northwest of the damaged nuclear plant, received 65 similar calls, he added.
Someone who understands Chinese and answered one of those phone calls heard the caller make a comment like, “Why are you dumping polluted water into the Pacific Ocean, which is a sea for everyone,” the city official said.
Other municipalities, hotels and restaurants have received similar calls since the day the Fukushima water began leaking into the ocean, according to Japanese media.
The article Japan irked by China’s phone calls about Fukushima waste dumping in the Pacific was published in Fourals.com.
