Nick Marsh
Asia Business Correspondent

Image source, EPA

As expected, China has imposed a blanket ban on all Japanese seafood.

Beijing announced some restrictions last month, but they were limited to 10 prefectures in Japan, including Fukushima and Tokyo. Earlier this week, Hong Kong announced a similar 10 prefecture ban on ‘aquatic produce’.

South Korea, too, still blocks seafood imports from the Fukushima area. It's a ban that's been in place since 2013 and, although the government's political stance has softened, it is one that it has no intention of lifting.

These are major customers for Japan and represent a lot of lost business. Nowhere buys more Japanese seafood than mainland China, which imported more than $600m worth last year. Remarkably, Hong Kong is only just behind - spending $520m on marine produce from Japan.

Given China's consistent and vocal opposition to the wastewater release, it's a scenario that Japan's government probably envisaged. In the short-term, it admits businesses will take a 'significant' hit.

In this sense, China understands the economic leverage it has over Japan and the question is whether Hong Kong will follow the mainland’s lead with another all-out ban.

Either way, we're talking about major disruption for Japan's seafood industry and for restaurants in Hong Kong and China.

China customs has suspended imports of all Japanese seafood over Fukushima wastewater, the AFP news agency said.

China had already banned seafood imports from Fuksuhima and some surrounding prefectures. This move expands it to the whole country.

It is the largest importer of Japanese seafood.

Jean Mackenzie
Seoul correspondent

More than a dozen protesters have been arrested for trying to break into the Japanese embassy in Seoul. They reportedly belong to a liberal students’ organisation.

It is the liberal opposition party in South Korea which has been most critical of the release of the water. Yesterday the leader of the opposition, Lee Jae-Myung, said the plan amounted to “water terrorism” and the “second Pacific War”.

The public here are also opposed. Polling in June suggested 84% of people did not want to water to be released.

The opposition party has more protests planned over the weekend. It will be interesting to see how much public momentum they can build for their cause in the coming days.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

China's foreign ministry released a statement soon after the release of the water.

It accused Japan of causing "secondary harm" to people out of its own "selfish interests". It also said the disposal of contaminated water is a major nuclear safety issue with cross-border implications.

It also accused Japan of failing to prove the legitimacy of the plan - despite years of rigorous checks by independent regulators in Japan and globally.

As we reported earlier, the International Atomic Energy Agency said the release meets all international safety standards. The UN regulator issued its approval after two years of assessment., external

The BBC's Beijing correspondent wrote earlier about the politics behind China's aggressive response. Beijing is in the middle of building even more nuclear reactors, he noted.

Some Japanese news agencies in the past minutes have started filing new pictures, showing an aerial view of the sea in which the treated water is being discharged into. One of those pictures is below.

Operators conducted final checks on the levels of tritium and other radioactive iostypes in the stored volumes before feeding the water through a tunnel into the Pacific Ocean.

Image source, Kyodo/Reuters

In 2011, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan struck off the country’s eastern coast.

It triggered a tsunami which killed more than 18,000 people and flooded the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station, sending three of its reactors into meltdown.

The plant also suffered a number of chemical explosions which badly damaged the buildings. Radioactive material began leaking into the atmosphere and the Pacific Ocean, prompting evacuations and an exclusion zone.

Overall nearly half-a-million people were forced to leave their homes as a result of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident.

Japan also moved away from using nuclear power- it suspended 46 of its 50 operational reactors after the disaster.

For a refresh on the meltdown at Fukushima, read this report.

At 13:00 local time (0400 GMT), Japan began slowly discharging more than one million tonnes of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

This is the water operators used to cool the plant's highly radioactive reactors which suffered a meltdown when a tsunami hit the nuclear plant in 2011.

This treatment water has been stored in tanks at the Fukushima plant for more than a decade, but the site has run out of space.

Japan decided in 2021 to release the water after a treatment which removes most radioactive elements. After two years of asssessment by UN atomic regulators, this was approved.

However the release has provoked protests in Japan, and anger in neighbouring countries China and South Korea.

Image source, EPA

Tepco, the plant operator, is broadcasting footage of the treated radioactive water's release at the plant.

"Now, valves near the seawater transport pumps are opening," a Tepco official said via a video link from the company's Tokyo headquarters.

A video of the Fukushima contaminated water discharge has been released, says the AFP news agency.

We will get those images to you as soon as we get them.

The plant operators say they have begun the discharge.

This starts a decades-long process of releasing more than one million tonnes of treated radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.

"We will switch on the seawater transfer pumps at around 1pm (0400 GMT) to begin the ocean discharge," Tokyo Electric Power said in a statement just released.

Image source, Reuters

Shaimaa Khalil
BBC Tokyo correspondent reporting from Fukushima

It’s quiet here in Ukedo fishing port. I can see the chimneys of the Fukushima power plant further along the coast beyond the greenery. There are more TV crews than fishermen here.

The one fisherman we’ve managed to speak to would only say: “We’ve been told not to talk about this. What’s the point of speaking about it?"

Given the amount of anxiety and anger in the two years since Japan’s decision to release the water into the ocean, you’d think crowds of people would be protesting on the actual day it happens.

But it’s a difficult situation for many fishermen who’ve been receiving government support since the tsunami and the nuclear disaster of 2011, and who still vehemently oppose the discharging into the ocean.

It's taken years for them to fight the reputational damage the nuclear meltdown has caused, and they see the discharge as a second disaster for their livelihoods.

“Iwaki is famous for its fish. I worry what this water release will do to all the restaurants here,” Rigari Fuuka tells me outside Fukushima’s Iwaki station.

The government may have all the technical approvals it needs - but this has done very little to reassure people here or around the region.

Operators began the process by diluting about a cubic metre of the treated radioactive water with around 1,200 cubic metres of seawater.

This has been stored in a water tank so that its radioactivity levels can be double checked.

Once this sample has been tested for tritium levels and cleared, they will commence Stage 2 of the plan: the continuous discharge of water through a long underwater pipe into the sea.

Tepco has promised that they will actively monitor tritium levels in surrounding waters, and have said that they will be transparent with information on how the operation is going. They will also publish live monitoring data.

Shaimaa Khalil
BBC Tokyo correspondent in Fukushima

I'm here at the fishing port closest to the Fukushima reactor, where the mood is tentative. The fishermen have been told by authorities not to speak to the many journalists gathered.

But Fukushima residents like Miyasugi Natsuki are already resigned to the release of the contaminated but treated water, despite their fears.

"Lots of people here in Fukushima are worried and against the release of this water. But I also understand you can’t leave the water here forever."

She added: "I just don’t want to be in a position where I can’t eat sushi anymore."

Image source, BBC News

This morning in Japan, we've already seen demonstrations against the release. Scores have gathered in front of the headquarters of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) - operators of the Fukushima plant.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, EPA

Tiffanie Turnbull
BBC News, Sydney

We've just run through the science backing the release of the treated water. But as we've noted, the concern is widespread - and spans the whole Pacific Ocean.

The Pacific is no stranger to dealing with the consequences of other country’s nuclear activities - for many decades last century, the US and France conducted nuclear tests in the region.

So Japan’s plan to release treated radioactive water has sparked a sense of deja vu for many islands on the other end of the ocean's currents.

Some 2.3 million people live in the Pacific - most relying on the ocean for food and income - and leaders voiced concerns about the unknown long term effects of the release on their people.

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in June said it feared it would set a dangerous precedent for other countries looking to dispose of nuclear waste.

But many countries have since come around. Cook Islands PM Mark Brown has said he is now satisfied Japan’s approach is safe, while Fiji’s leader Sitiveni Rabuka decried “fear-mongering” on the topic.

But Brown - also the chairman of the PIF - said some nations still opposed the release and that it may be impossible for the entire region to agree on the "complex" issue.

Nicholas Yong
Reporting from Singapore

Image source, Getty Images

It's just past midday in Japan. The discharge of the treated radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will begin in less than an hour.

We've checked the monitors on the Tepco plant operator's site - and it's all as planned so far. Right now, experts will be double-checking the treated quantities to make sure they're at the designated safety levels.

And then it will be a slow, gradual release off Japan's east coast through an underwater pipe.

This is just the start of a project to push out 1.3 million tons of water into the Pacific Ocean for at least the next 30 years.

Our teams in Japan, South Korea, China and Singapore will continue to bring you updates.

The International Atomic Energy Agency in July gave Japan's discharge plan the greenlight.

It concluded that Japan's plan for a controlled and gradual release met international safety standards.

The regulator also said the release would have "a negligible radiological impact to people and the environment."

Here's the full quote below:

The agency's final report was the outcome of two years of work by its specialist taskforce made up of nuclear safety experts from eleven countries. You can read the full findings here., external

The IAEA set up a permanent office at the Fukushima plant during its two years of assessment - and its officers are on site today for the discharge. It will also publish near real-time monitoring data today., external

Overwhelmingly, the message from experts is that today's release is safe.

The process of treating the water and the plan to release it has been closely scrutinised by international authorities, who have found it adheres to even conservative safety standards.

Not only can these radioactive isotypes already be found inside the human body, the amount of them in the water release is so tiny it’s negligible.

The projected radiation dose to members of the public is in the range of 0.002 to 0.030 microSv per year.

But humans can safely be exposed to tens of thousands of times more than that - up to 1,000 microSv of radiation per year.

And to put it in perspective, a simple dental X-ray gives you a radiation dose of about 5 microSv, while a mammogram used in breast cancer screening gives you a dose of about 200 to 300 microSv.

Stephen McDonell
China correspondent

China has slammed Japan’s planned discharge of contaminated water from Fukushima as “extremely selfish and irresponsible”, even while Beijing is approving the construction of new reactors 10 at a time.

While these views seem to have considerable support among Chinese people, they also reveal the limited nature of public discourse in a country where the Communist Party controls all media and censors social media posts.

There are no TV panel debates comparing Japan’s planned discharges with those of other countries which are also routinely releasing contaminated material into the sea.

There is certainly no mention of what China’s reactors are doing.

If Japan is “deliberately creating an illusion regarding the safety of these discharges” – as the Chinese government says it is – then surely this would spur a more general discussion about the safety of nuclear power in general; the procedures required to respond to nuclear accidents; the storage of toxic waste and the like but these subjects are not being raised here, apart from in private conversations.

There will be a significant acceleration in China's nuclear power use in the coming years, but the Chinese government’s characterisation of this week’s contaminated water discharge is that it is a uniquely Japanese act of “shifting nuclear contamination risks to the world”.

There will no doubt be more strong language coming out of the Chinese capital, with the commencement of the discharge programme.