More than 7 out of 10 S. Koreans oppose Japan's nuke wastewater dumping: poll

SEOUL -- More than seven out of 10 South Koreans expressed their opposition to Japan's dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the ocean, a poll showed Friday.

According to the Research View survey of 1,000 adults for two days through Aug 30, 72.4 percent said they opposed Japan's marine dumping of Fukushima radioactive wastewater while 20.4 percent were in favor.

Among those who identified themselves as liberal voters, 83.8 percent were against the marine discharge, while 61.3 percent of conservative voters objected to the wastewater release.

The pollster said the public opposition was high in the range of 60-80 percent regardless of gender, age and region, noting that it showed great public concern about the dumping.

The results had plus and minus 3.1 percentage points in margin of error with a 95-percent confidence level.

Those who replied that the South Korean government was actually in favor of the wastewater release reached 77.7 percent of the total respondents, while only 9.2 percent said Seoul was actually opposed to it.

The government has maintained a position that it was neither in support of nor against the marine dumping.

A total of 78.3 percent of respondents said South Korea should prohibit the import of all Japanese fishery products, while 18.5 percent were against the import ban.

As for the rising view that South Koreans should boycott Japanese products together with the international society, 67.4 percent agreed to it while 28.1 percent opposed it.

Struck by a massive earthquake and an ensuing tsunami in March 2011, the Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered core meltdowns and generated a massive amount of water tainted with radioactive substances from cooling down the nuclear fuel.

Japan started dumping the first batch of radioactive wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean on Aug 24.