Thousands of dead fish are washing up in Japan, but authorities are quick to dismiss speculation that it has anything to do with a recent waste water dump. Photo: Accuweather//X
Vast numbers of dead fish, mostly sardines and mackerel, have been washing up on the coast of Hakodate, a city on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. It was quickly speculated that it had something to do with the recent releases of waste water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, but Japanese authorities are dismissing that theory.
“There have been no abnormalities found in the results of water-monitoring surveys,” said the Hakodate Fisheries Agency. “We are concerned about the proliferation of information that is not based on scientific evidence.”
It’s not only in Hakodate, either — a little over 500 miles away, at the Nakiri fishing port, more dead sardines (also known as sappa) washed up on December 13.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” a fisherman who’s been working in Nakiri for 25 years, told the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper. “It was only around last year that we began to catch sappa in Nakiri. It makes me feel the marine ecosystem is changing.”
Thousands of dead fish, mostly sardines, mysteriously washed up on a beach in Hokkaido, Japan.
The exact cause remains unknown, but researcher Takashi Fujioka suggests migration to colder waters could have potentially caused the fish deaths. pic.twitter.com/2xry5x9KFL
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) December 9, 2023
According to scientists at the Hokkaido Research Organization, the die-off could be caused by many things, like drastic and sudden water temperature changes. Generally, however, pinpointing the reason behind die-offs of this size — about 1,200 tons — is difficult.
The timing is suspicious, though, as many people online were quick to point at Fukushima as the culprit. Japan began releasing treated wastewater from the nuclear disaster into the Pacific Ocean back in August, and they plan on continuing to do so for the next three decades. The plan was cause for concern, not only in Japan, but in other neighboring nations, as well. Both China and South Korea voiced opposition, but Japanese authorities are insistent that the levels of radiation in the wastewater is negligible.
