Japan: Alert over radioactive milk and

Published on Saturday 19 March 2011 13:44

THE Japanese nuclear disaster has taken on a new and potentially far-reaching dimension after radioactive iodine was found in milk in the area and radiation was detected in Tokyo tap water, 140 miles from the crippled plant.

Last night, a ban on the sale of food from the Fukushima region around the complex was being considered by government officials.

The first food scare since the crisis was triggered nine days ago by an earthquake and tsunami came as the Japanese government announced that spinach from a neighbouring area had also exceeded safe limits by up to seven times.

The quakes and floods have left 7,300 people confirmed dead so far, with a further 10,900 missing and 452,000 homeless.

Milk affected by radiation came from a farm 19 miles from the nuclear plant and the spinach was from farms as far as 65 miles away, suggesting a wide area of contamination.

The possible food sale ban would cover the Fukushima prefecture, which is as large as Strathclyde and has a population of two million people.

Levels of radioactive iodine in tap water in the region also breached safety limits on Thursday but have since fallen back, health officials said yesterday. Traces have also been detected in water in Tokyo and five other areas, although they remained within government safety limits.

The International Atomic Energy Agency described the possible food sale ban as a "critical" measure. It said: "The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has confirmed the presence of radioactive iodine contamination in food products measured in the Fukushima prefecture, the area around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

"According to the latest data, the food products were measured from 16-18 March and indicated the presence of radioactive iodine. The ministry has requested an investigation into the possible stop of sales of food products from the Fukushima prefecture."

Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said milk from the Fukushima prefecture and spinach grown in Ibaraki, a neighbouring area to the south, breached government safety levels.

Edano said the tainted milk was found 19 miles from the plant and the spinach between 50 and 65 miles away.

He said other foods were also being monitored.

The IAEA said radioactive iodine could accumulate in the body and damage the thyroid, with children and young people being at particular risk.

The thyroid is a gland in the neck which controls the rate the body produces energy. Agency officials said the substance had a half-life of around eight days and decayed naturally within weeks, but there was a short-term risk to health.

People leaving a 12.5-mile zone around the nuclear plant are already being offered stable (non-radioactive) iodine doses, which can help prevent the accumulation of radioactive iodine in the thyroid.

The IAEA says Japan has provided 230,000 doses to evacuation centres.

The agency said yesterday the evacuation of the 12.5-mile zone around the stricken plant had been completed.

People within 19 miles of the reactors have been advised to stay indoors.

The British Embassy yesterday distributed iodine tablets to Britons in Tokyo and Sendai, north of Fukushima, as "a precaution". They were also due to distribute them in Niigata, west of Fukushima, today.

Edano said if tests showed further contamination, shipments of other food from the area would be halted. "It's not like if you ate it, right away you would be harmed," he said. However, he added: "It would not be good to continue to eat it for some time."

Edano said someone drinking the affected milk for one year would consume as much radiation as in a CT scan - a compressed series of X-rays used for medical tests

For the spinach, it would be one fifth of a CT scan.Reactors at Fukushima Daiichi plant began overheating and leaking radiation into the atmosphere after the earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed its cooling systems.

However, the IAEA said radiation levels outside the closest zone to the plant were still well within safe limits.

A spokesman said: "Rates in Tokyo and other areas outside the 30km (19-mile] zone remain far from levels which would require any protective action. In other words they are not dangerous to human health."

United Nations radiation monitoring elsewhere in Japan also showed that levels were "minuscule", according to an unnamed diplomat with access to the results.

The Vienna-based official said the atmospheric measurements were 100 million to one billion times less than health-threatening levels.

He said that the readings were taken on Friday at Takasaki, which is 200 miles south-west of the nuclear plant. Similar readings were recorded on Russia's eastern Kamtchatka peninsula and in California.

They were taken by a network of stations operated by the Vienna-based Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organisation, which monitors all nuclear testing.

The Japanese government has admitted it has been slow to respond to the nuclear crisis, which has compounded the massive disruption caused by the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March.