NoAuthorities in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau issued a statement on Thursday night to guarantee that “supply is stable” and to appeal to residents to “maintain common sense and not believe rumours”.
“According to available data, the amount of salt stock in Macau currently exceeds 190,000 kilograms, which is enough for 37 days of Macau’s entire population, and suppliers will also continue its acquisition,” they said.
China halted all imports of aquatic products from Japan on Thursday, shortly after the Fukushima nuclear plant began spewing contaminated water into the sea.
Several publicly traded salt producers posted significant increases in share prices on Thursday in response to a sudden surge in demand, according to Yicai.
The state-run Global Times newspaper reported that demand for radiation detectors “that can be used in imported food and cosmetics” increased by 232% this week, and that sales of the devices increased on Thursday, coinciding with the start of the evacuations.
China’s foreign ministry on Thursday called Japan “selfish and irresponsible” because it is a “nuclear security issue whose impact goes beyond Japan’s borders”.
Beijing has called on Japan in recent days to suspend the program and has announced it will maintain a “higher level of vigilance” on food imports from Japan.
The evacuation plan at Fukushima received approval from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), yet on Thursday, the UN agency guaranteed that the concentration of tritium in the water at the nuclear power plant was below expected limits.
The operator of the plant wants to release 31,200 tons of treated water by the end of March 2024, which will empty only 10 of the approximately 1,000 storage tanks, although the discharge rate should increase later.
The first phase will last about 17 days and is expected to release about 7,800 cubic meters of water containing tritium, a radioactive material that is dangerous only in very concentrated amounts.
The release of water began nearly 12-and-a-half years after the March 2011 reactor accident, which was triggered by a strong earthquake and tsunami.
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