Saturday, March 26, 2011

Radioactivity levels soar in Japan seawater

Radioactivity levels are soaring in seawater near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan's nuclear safety agency said on Saturday, two weeks after the nuclear power plant was hit by a massive earthquake and tsunami.

Even as engineers tried to pump puddles of radioactive water from the power plant 150 miles north of Tokyo, the nuclear safety agency said tests on Friday showed radioactive iodine had spiked 1,250 times higher than normal in the seawater just offshore the plant.

A senior official from Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Hidehiko Nishiyama, said the contamination posed little risk to aquatic life.

"Ocean currents will disperse radiation particles and so it will be very diluted by the time it gets consumed by fish and seaweed," he said.

More

No comments: