Epress.am News from Armenia
Radioactive iodine-131 at a concentration of 3,355 times the maximum allowable level under the law was detected in a seawater sample taken Tuesday afternoon near the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the government’s nuclear agency said Wednesday.
The highest concentration observed so far in seawater from the troubled power station suggests radiation originating from reactor cores, where fuel rods have partially melted, may have been continuously leaking into the Pacific Ocean, reports Japan Today.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said the exact cause of the high iodine concentration remains unknown but that data taken by the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) indicate radiation that has leaked at the site during the ongoing crisis ‘‘somehow’’ flowed into the sea.
He reiterated that the polluted seawater will not pose immediate health risks because fishing would not be conducted in the evacuation-designated area within 20 kilometers of the plant and radiation-emitting substances would be ‘‘significantly diluted’’ by the time they are consumed by marine species and then by people.
‘‘It is important that we keep monitoring radiation data, find out what caused the pollution as soon as possible and take measures to prevent the radiation levels from rising further,’’ Nishiyama said.
Last Saturday, the iodine-131 concentration level in the sea some 330 meters south of the drainage outlets of the troubled Nos. 1-4 reactors at the plant reached about 1,850 times the legal limit, but the density had declined to around 28 times on Monday.