Experts to visit Fukushima plant to check water release plan

By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press

TOKYO (AP) — Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency will visit Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant next week to review plans to begin releasing more than a million tons of treated radioactive water into the sea. The government hopes the mission with assure people of the safety of the release, which is expected to take decades to finish. The water is being stored in about 1,000 tanks at the plant which need to be removed to allow for the wrecked plant’s decades-long decommissioning. A massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011 destroyed the plant’s cooling systems, triggering the meltdown of three reactors and the release of large amounts of radiation. Water used to cool the reactor cores has since leaked extensively.