The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has begun additional monitoring measures at sea near the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power station in Japan as part of an agreement between Tokyo and China.

The agency said it had carried out marine sampling as an initial step, aided by experts from various countries who were in Japan for a mission to collect samples for the latest IAEA checks on the discharge of treated water from the facility.

This follows last month’s announcements by Japan and China that they had agreed to implement additional measures. The IAEA confirmed that the agreement was “built on its existing sampling and monitoring activities in compliance with the IAEA statutory functions”.