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Fallout reaches US coast, but levels are low
Source: Agencies |
March 19, 2011, Saturday
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Print Edition
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Radioactive fallout from Japan's crippled nuclear plant has reached southern California but the first readings are far below levels that could pose a health hazard, a diplomat said yesterday.
The diplomat, who has access to radiation tracking by the United Nations' Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, cited readings from a station in California.
Initial readings were "about a billion times beneath levels that would be health threatening," the diplomat, who wished to remain anonymous, said.
The comments backed up experts' expectations that radiation - relatively low outside the immediate vicinity of the Japanese plant - would pose no risk by the time it reached the US.
While set up to monitor atmospheric nuclear testing, the CTBTO's worldwide network of stations can detect earthquakes, tsunamis and fallout from nuclear accidents such as the disaster on Japan's northeastern coast.
Japanese officials yesterday reclassified the accident at the plant from Level 4 to Level 5, putting it on a par with the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Level 4 is defined as having local consequences and a Level 5 has wider consequences.
Yukiya Amano, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Organization, has traveled to Tokyo to assess the situation.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization said Tokyo's radiation levels are increasing but still not a health risk, and the group saw no reason to ban travel to Japan.
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the organization "is not advising travel restrictions to Japan" outside the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the Fukushima complex.
Hartl said that included Tokyo where "radiation levels have increased very slightly, but are still well below the absolute levels of radiation where it would be considered a public health risk." He added: "In general, travelers returning from Japan do not represent a health hazard."
The diplomat, who has access to radiation tracking by the United Nations' Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, cited readings from a station in California.
Initial readings were "about a billion times beneath levels that would be health threatening," the diplomat, who wished to remain anonymous, said.
The comments backed up experts' expectations that radiation - relatively low outside the immediate vicinity of the Japanese plant - would pose no risk by the time it reached the US.
While set up to monitor atmospheric nuclear testing, the CTBTO's worldwide network of stations can detect earthquakes, tsunamis and fallout from nuclear accidents such as the disaster on Japan's northeastern coast.
Japanese officials yesterday reclassified the accident at the plant from Level 4 to Level 5, putting it on a par with the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Level 4 is defined as having local consequences and a Level 5 has wider consequences.
Yukiya Amano, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Organization, has traveled to Tokyo to assess the situation.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization said Tokyo's radiation levels are increasing but still not a health risk, and the group saw no reason to ban travel to Japan.
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the organization "is not advising travel restrictions to Japan" outside the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the Fukushima complex.
Hartl said that included Tokyo where "radiation levels have increased very slightly, but are still well below the absolute levels of radiation where it would be considered a public health risk." He added: "In general, travelers returning from Japan do not represent a health hazard."
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