Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has delayed its plan to release radioactive water from its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the sea.

TEPCO said on December eighth that it would discharge the radioactive water into the ocean, citing a shortage of storage facilities for the water. But in the face of rising criticism at home and abroad, the Japanese power company has decided to put the plan on the shelf, saying it will not release the contaminated water into the sea without permission from related government agencies.

Instead, the power company says it will block the inflow of ground water into the nuclear plant and build more facilities to process contaminated water.

However, some experts say that it is likely that the Japanese power supplier will eventually dump the contaminated water into the sea in the end due to its limited storage capacity.