Did 12 million farm fishes die on Korean south coast due to radioactive contamination? No, that's not true: The reason for the fish death was high water temperature.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) where it was published by @nangezaici on TikTok, on September 6, 2023 under the title "핵오염 배출 4000만톤, 생물들이 계속 패사", "40 million tons of radioactive material released, living beings are dying" (Translated from Korean by Lead Stories Staff). It opened:
1200 fish died of radioactivity contamination🤯
The TikToker made a spelling mistake by writing 1200 fish as he missed the Korean character '만' for ten thousand. But from the context of the video it is clear that he refers to the fish death of 12 million which occurred on Korea's south coast.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Thu Sep 28 00:57:05 2023 UTC)
The author shows a news report about the recent massive death of farm fishes on southern coast of Korea, claiming it is due to Fukushima treated water discharge. In the in-video caption, the author said just "radioactive contamination", but mentioned Fukushima in the hashtag, implying that the "radioactive contamination" means Fukushima treated water.
However, the shared news report itself says the cause of the fish death was high water temperature, not radioactive water coming from Fukushima. The news report is originally from TV Chosun, a South Korean cable TV channel. In the report, the journalist explained that high water temperature above 28°C was the main cause of massive death of approximately 12 million fish. Moreover, other Korean news channels covering the incident also confirmed that the fish death was due to extremely high water temperature.
