Late last month, Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima, acknowledged a delay in making public that contaminated water was leaking into the sea. It came up with a lame excuse that it did not want to worry the public until it was certain that there was a problem before making such a “major announcement.”

It should not come as a surprise that TEPCO hid its findings until after the House of Councilors election. It is conceivable that it did not want to rub the ruling Liberal Democratic Party the wrong way prior to a major election.

But the leak of radioactive water into the sea cannot be a matter concerning Japan’s domestic politics alone. It is a matter of great concern to Japan’s neighbors because it affects them in one way or another.

As such, TEPCO should have announced its initial findings immediately, updated the information and shared it with neighboring countries, including Korea. But it did not.

There is no established connection between the leakage of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea and a groundless rumor spreading on Korean social networking services that Korea imported tainted fish and other marine products from Japan. But the fear about the contaminated water may have prompted the rumor, which says the public was exposed to a dangerous level of radiation.

The rumor has it that the Korean government wanted to stabilize the domestic prices of marine products by spending 1.2 trillion won for the imports from Japan. Few with common sense would believe this.

Still, the rumor, if unchecked, could deal irrevocable damage to the domestic fisheries industry. Though it was found to be groundless, it could drive consumers away from marine products.

No wonder Prime Minister Chung Hong-won ordered a crackdown on the spread of the rumor. He said at a conference on policy coordination among different government agencies on Friday, “A scary story, though untruthful, may spread rapidly when it is put on the Internet or SNS. It becomes a social threat when it causes inconvenience and fuels fear among people.”

As the prime minister said, government agencies will have to respond rapidly to rumors that could destabilize society. They will have to look into them immediately, establish the facts and share their findings with the public as soon as possible. In other words, they will have to act before irreversible damage is done to society.

At the conference, the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries reported that safety checks conducted during the past five months had found that neither imports from Japan nor domestic products exceeded the permissible radioactive level.

Still, the ministry cannot remain idle. Together with the Korea Food and Drug Administration, the ministry will have to keep monitoring imports from Japan, share the information with the public promptly and help crack down on false rumors.