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| From: http://www.straitstimes.com |
Tokyo Hit With Fukushima Radiation
Source: Global Research Canada and Washington Blog. October 14, 2011
CNN reports today:
An extraordinarily high level of radiation was detected in one spot in a central Tokyo residential district Thursday, prompting the local government to cordon off the small area, local officials said.
Radiation levels were higher in Tokyo’s Setagaya ward than in the evacuation area around the badly damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, according to ward Mayor Nobuto Hosaka.
“We are shocked to see such high radiation level was detected in our neighborhood. We cannot leave it as is,” Hosaka told reporters.
But the tsunami-struck Fukushima plant may not be the source of the radiation, Hosaka said later on state television.
Officials searching for the cause found “glass bottles in a cardboard box” in the basement of a house in the neighborhood which sent radiation detectors off the charts, he said on NHK.
“We suspect these bottles in basement could be the cause of the high radiation reading and we are hastily working to confirm it,” he said.
Radiation experts are now checking what contaminated the bottles, a Setagaya ward official told CNN, declining to be named in line with policy.
Perhaps it is just some random contaminated bottles.
But as the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday:
Japanese researchers discovered high levels of radioactive material in concentrated areas in Tokyo and Yokohama, more than 241 kilometers away from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, as increasingly thorough tests provide a clearer picture of just how far contamination has spread and accumulated ….
In Tokyo, a sidewalk in Setagaya ward, in the western part of the city, recorded radiation levels of 2.707 microsieverts per hour, about 50 times higher than another location in Setagaya where the ward regularly monitors radiation levels….
In Yokohama, the local government said last month that it detected 40,200 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram of sediments collected from one part of a roadside ditch….
Yokohama is investigating another spot on an apartment rooftop where tests conducted by a local private research institute detected more than 60,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium per a kilogram of sediments.
The Journal also notes that these radioactive hotspots were not found through routine tests, but only because some residents walked around with geiger counters:
Both Setagaya Ward and Yokohama discovered those concentrated spots after residents carrying their radiation measuring devices noticed such spots and reported it to local officials.
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