据央视新闻消息，当地时间22日，日本政府举行相关阁僚会议后宣布，将从24日开始，将福岛第一核电站核污染水排入海洋。

Japanese government announced Tuesday it has decided to start releasing nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the ocean on Thursday, weather conditions permitting.

Despite raging opposition from both home and abroad, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced the controversial decision following a ministerial meeting held on Tuesday morning.

Hit by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and an ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011, the plant suffered core meltdowns that released radiation, resulting in a level-7 nuclear accident, the highest on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.

The plant has been generating a massive amount of water tainted with radioactive substances from cooling down the nuclear fuel in the reactor buildings, which are now being stored in about 1,000 storage tanks.

It's common sense that every stretch of ocean in the world is connected and no nation can shield itself from the effects of this crime.

While the Republic of Korea, which called it Japan's internal matter, will be among the first to face the pollution, the US, which supported Japan's plan, can soon start the countdown of 57 days it will take for the contaminated water to pollute half of the Pacific and reach its Western coast soon.

For future generations to stay free from the fear of nuclear contamination, for the global marine ecological environment to be spared a systemic challenge, and for the Earth to remain habitable, it's high time the world joined hands to render a last endeavor toward stopping that crime.