Japan is set to conduct seven rounds of discharge of contaminated water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, starting from April. 

According to Japan’s Kyodo News on Thursday, the Tokyo Electric Power Company(TEPCO), the operator of the Fukushima facility, plans to discharge 54-thousand-600 tons of wastewater from April of this year to March of next year over seven rounds.

Each round is likely to involve the release of some 78-hundred tons of wastewater, similar to the previous rounds. 

TEPCO carried out three rounds of discharge last year, between August and November. It is set to begin the fourth round in late February. 

Previously, TEPCO had revealed plans to release a total of 31-thousand-200 tons of wastewater between 2023 and March of this year. 

Meanwhile, the plant operator decided to postpone plans to start removing debris on a test basis from the plant’s unit 2 reactor from before March to October. 

The delay comes after TEPCO, which was planning to use a remote-controlled robotic arm for the debris removal work, found that the pipe through which the robotic arm was to be inserted was packed with sediment.