Home > Man-Made Disasters > Japan: High Concentrations of Radioactive Cesium in Plankton Near Fukushima Raising Fears of Food Chain Contamination

Japan: High Concentrations of Radioactive Cesium in Plankton Near Fukushima Raising Fears of Food Chain Contamination


“High concentrations of radioactive cesium have been found in plankton from the sea near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Researchers from Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology collected plankton in waters up to 60 kilometers from the coast of Iwaki City in July. They found 669 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium in animal plankton from waters 3 kilometers offshore.

They say a wide range of fish feed on animal plankton and that the contamination could accumulate in the food chain and have a more serious impact when it gets into relatively large fish.

The research group’s leader, Professor Takashi Ishimaru, says the plankton were so heavily contaminated because sea currents continuously carried contaminated water southward from the nuclear plant. He says detailed studies are needed to determine how long the effect on fish will continue.” Source.

Citizens’ Testing Finds 20 Hot Spots Around Tokyo, Some Readings As High As Contaminated Areas Around Chernobyl – “TOKYO — Takeo Hayashida signed on with a citizens’ group to test for radiation near his son’s baseball field in Tokyo after government officials told him they had no plans to check for fallout from the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Like Japan’s central government, local officials said there was nothing to fear in the capital, 160 miles from the disaster zone. Then came the test result: the level of radioactive cesium in a patch of dirt just yards from where his 11-year-old son, Koshiro, played baseball was equal to those in some contaminated areas around Chernobyl.” Read more.

Radioactive Strontium Detected in Yokohama south of Tokyo – “Radioactive strontium exceeding normal quantities has been detected in sediment from atop an apartment building in Yokohama,  south of Tokyo, and radiation levels as high as 2.707 microsieverts per hour have been detected on a local sidewalk in Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, Japanese media reported. The strontium 90 was detected in Yokohama, some 250 kilometers from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, by a private agency that conducted the test upon the request of a resident. This is the first time strontium at a concentration of over 100 becquerels per kilogram has been found beyond 100 km from the Fukushima plant.” Read more.

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