Russia suspends seafood imports from Japan amid radiation fears

Wednesday, April06, 2011 22:42:53 |English.news.cn

MOSCOW, April 6 (Xinhua) -- Russia had suspended seafood imports from 242 Japanese companies due to fears of radiation contamination, Russia's food safety and sanitary watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, said in a Wednesday statement.

"The restrictions were introduced after an analysis of threats and risks which arose after the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant," the statement said.

However, Rosselkhoznadzor didn't say how long the ban would last.

According to local reports, Russia imported 57,000 tons of seafood from Japan last year.

Earlier this month, Japan called for calm over radiation concerns, but is itself considering imposing radioactivity restrictions on seafood for the first time after contaminated fish were found.

Also on Wednesday, the Fukushima plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said it had stopped highly radioactive water from flowing into the Pacific Ocean from the crippled plant by injecting a chemical compound. Editor: yan sourced: xinhua

Radiation in tunnel water at Japan plant 10,000 times over normal

Thu Mar 31, 2011 3:08pm GMT

TOKYO, March 31 (Reuters) - Radiation in water of an underground tunnel outside a turbine building of No.2 reactor at Japan's crippled nuclear complex was more than 10,000 times above normal levels in reactors, the plant operator was quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying on Thursday.

The operator also found radiation in groundwater near a turbine building of the No.1 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Kyodo added. And an abnormal level of radioactive caesium has been found in beef from the area, it said. (Reporting by Yoko Nishikawa and Kiyoshi Takenaka,
sourced Reuters)

Japan: new reactor blast unlikely to cause big leak

Mar 14, 2011 12:02am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - A fresh explosion at Japan's quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex on Monday is unlikely to have led to a large escape of radioactivity, the government said.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano was speaking after a hydrogen explosion at the No.3 reactor in the plant, which sent a plume of smoke into the air.

Japan's nuclear safety agency later said, quoting a report from the facility's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (9501.T), that radiation near the No.3 reactor about 40 minutes after the explosion was about one-50th of that considered critical to human health.

The data suggests the explosion would not have damaged the reactor's containment vessel, a spokesman at the agency said at a news conference.

There were casualties, but the number or other details were not available, the spokesman said.

There is no wind near the plant near the ground and wind above the plant is blowing from the west or from the southwest, the spokesman added, meaning the wind is blowing toward the sea.

The direction of the wind is a key factor in judging possible damage on the environment from the radiation leaking from the plant, which was hit by Japan's biggest earthquake on record and a tsunami.

(Reporting by Elaine Lies and Risa Maeda; Editing by Joseph Radford,sourced: Thomson Reuters)