Japan’s Environment Ministry says tritium in seawater off the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains below the detectable level.

The ministry on Monday announced the results of its fifth weekly survey of water samples.

Ministry officials have been conducting the survey since Tokyo Electric Power Company started releasing treated and diluted water from the plant into the ocean on August 24, according to Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK World).

Samples in the latest survey were collected last Tuesday from 11 points off the coast of Fukushima Prefecture, including a spot near the water discharge outlet and a location as far as about 50 kilometers away.

The ministry said the concentration of tritium at all the points was below the minimum detectable level of 10 becquerels per liter.

The tritium was also below the detectable level in the previous four surveys.

The ministry plans to continue monitoring tritium levels once a week for the time being.

On August 24, Japan started dischargin
g the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean despite opposition from the local fishing industry and China.

Tokyo affirmed that the water is safe as most radionuclides except tritium have been removed through a purification process, China urged Japan to stop discharging what it calls nuclear-contaminated water.

A powerful 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit Japan in March 11, unleashing massive tsunami waves that crashed into Japan’s eastern coast, resulting in widespread damage and destruction of infrastructure, oil stations and nuclear plants, including Fukushima and causing a nuclear leakage described as the worst since the Chernobyl reactor explosion disaster in 1986.

Source: Qatar News Agency