The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, arrived in Japan on Tuesday for his fifth official visit, which will include his first inspection of storage facilities containing soil contaminated by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Grossi, who leads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is overseeing the long-term decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which suffered a meltdown after a devastating tsunami. The disaster remains the worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl.
As part of cleanup efforts, workers have begun dismantling wastewater storage tanks at the site to make room for nuclear debris. During his visit on Wednesday, Grossi will tour the plant and inspect contaminated soil, which the Japanese government is still debating how to manage.
Following the disaster, around 13 million cubic meters of contaminated soil and 300,000 cubic meters of incinerated organic material were removed from the wider Fukushima region. The soil is currently stored in interim facilities covering an area of 16 square kilometres (six square miles).
The government plans to recycle approximately 75 percent of this soil—specifically the portion with low radiation levels—for civil engineering projects, such as road and railway embankments. The remaining soil will be permanently disposed of outside Fukushima by a 2045 deadline, with authorities aiming to finalise the disposal site this year.
According to the IAEA, Japan’s strategy aligns with international safety standards. “Japan’s approach for recycling and disposing of soil and radioactive waste from decontamination activities… is consistent with IAEA safety standards,” the agency stated in its September report.
Meanwhile, the most challenging phase of the Fukushima cleanup—the removal of 880 tonnes of radioactive fuel and debris from three damaged reactors—has only just begun, with a robotic claw extracting a small sample.
During Grossi’s visit, experts from the IAEA and neighbouring countries, including China and South Korea, will also collect seawater and fish samples. This initiative aims to increase transparency over Japan’s ongoing discharge of treated wastewater from the plant into the sea.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) began releasing 1.3 million tonnes of collected water in August 2023, after filtering out radioactive elements except for tritium, which remains within safe limits. While the IAEA has approved the release, China and Russia have criticised the move and imposed bans on Japanese seafood imports over safety concerns.
China indicated in September that it would gradually resume seafood imports, but no progress has been made so far. Grossi’s visit comes at a critical moment, as Japan seeks to reassure the international community about the safety of its Fukushima cleanup efforts.
