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Home >Expats Living in ShanghaiJapanese government set radiation safety standards for fish.
Update：2013-12-10 00:56 Views：
The Japanese government set its first radiation safety standards for fish yesterday after the tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant reported radioactive contamination in seawater measuring several million times the legal limit.The plant operator said the radiation would rapidly disperse and posed no immediate danger, but an expert said exposure to the highly concentrated levels near the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant could cause immediate injury and that the leaks could result in residual contamination of the sea in the area.
The safety standard move came after the health ministry reported that fish caught last Friday off Ibaraki Prefecture - at a spot about 80 kilometers from the nuclear plant - contained levels of radioactive iodine that would have exceeded the new provisional limit. Caesium also was found, at just below the limit.
Such limits are usually conservative. After spinach and milk tested at levels exceeding the safety standard, health experts said you would have to eat enormous quantities of tainted produce before getting the same amount of radiation in a CT scan.
"Even if the government says the fish is safe, people won't want to buy seafood from Fukushima," said Ichiro Yamagata, a fisherman who used to live within sight of the nuclear plant and has since fled to a shelter in Tokyo. "We probably can't fish there for several years."
Japan imports far more than it exports, but it still sent the world US$2.3 billion worth of seafood last year. And in the home of sushi, worries over contamination could deal a blow to its brand.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said samples taken from seawater near one of the reactors contained 7.5 million times the legal limit for radioactive iodine on April 2. Two days later, that figure dropped to 5 million.
The company said that even those large amounts would have "no immediate impact" on the environment but added that it was working to stop the leak as soon as possible.
The readings released yesterday were taken closer to the plant than before and did not necessarily reflect a worsening of the contamination.
Experts agree that radiation dissipates quickly in the vast Pacific, but direct exposure to the most contaminated water measured would lead to "immediate injury," said Yoichi Enokida, a professor of materials science at Nagoya University.
He said seawater may be diluting the iodine, which decays quickly, but the leak also contains long-lasting caesium-137, which can build up in fish over time. Both can build up in fish, though iodine's short half-life means it does not stay there for very long. The long-term effects of caesium, however, will need to be studied, he said.
Workers at the plant yesterday used "liquid glass" in the hope of plugging cracks in a leaking concrete pit.
"We tried pouring sawdust, newspaper and concrete mixtures into the side of the pit, but the mixture does not seem to be entering the cracks," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
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