Tokyo’s Setagaya Says
Radiation Spike Unlikely
From Fukushima
Japanese Nuclear Meltdown
EMF Radiation Protection
Magnetic Field Meters
October
13, 2011
By Chisaki Watanabe and Makoto Miyazaki
Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Tokyo’s Setagaya district officials
said an investigation today of a “high” radiation reading in
the area indicates it may not have come from the crippled
Fukushima reactors.
The district in the western part of the capital said earlier
today it will expand tests in 258 locations after a local
resident alerted authorities to a radiation spike that
required partially blocking off a sidewalk to the public.
Investigators entered an unoccupied house alongside the
sidewalk and radiation readings led them to remove
floorboards where they found a case of unidentified
substances in bottles, public broadcaster NHK reported.
“When a dosimeter was brought close to the bottles the
radiation readings exceeded the limit of the device,”
Setagaya Mayor Nobuto Hosaka said in a press conference
carried by NHK. No further details were given on the
possible contents of the bottles.
The reading was more than 30 microsieverts per hour, NHK
reported, which equates to a dose of 157.7 millisieverts per
year, or more than 150 times the internationally recommended
safety level for the general public, according to a Science
Ministry formula.
The discovery follows a flurry of reports this week on a
rise in radiation readings in Tokyo and Yokohama, indicating
fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster has formed “hot
spots” in the cities.
Setagaya ward, a mostly residential district with a
population of more than 840,000 people, earlier said
radiation readings near the sidewalk in the Tsurumaki
5-chome area reached 2.7 microsieverts per hour. The ward,
home to Komazawa park that hosted events in the 1964
Olympics, is 233 kilometers (145 miles) from the Fukushima
reactors leaking radiation.
More Testing
Other areas in Tokyo and Yokohama have reported radiation
readings requiring further investigation, with most
originating from local residents using personal dosimeters.
Setagaya adjoins Ota ward where radiation levels exceeding
the ward’s own safety standard of 0.25 microsieverts per
hour were detected at 13 schools, the Ota ward board of
education said today. The tests are continuing at the
schools.
In Yokohama, officials are testing samples in an area of
Kohoku ward after a resident removed sediment from an
apartment building roof that laboratory tests showed
contained strontium found in radioactive fallout.
“We received data from a resident about strontium and we are
carrying out an investigation in the neighborhood by picking
up samples for lab tests,” said Yokohama city official John
Kuramochi. He declined to confirm if the first lab tests
showed the sediment contained strontium 90.
Strontium 90 has a similar structure to calcium and tends to
accumulate in bone and can cause bone cancer and leukemia,
Hiroaki Koide, a nuclear physics scientist at Kyoto
University, said on the phone today.
“It seems what was found in Yokohama is a relatively high
radiation dose, so they need to thoroughly investigate.”
--Editor: Peter Langan
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