Beijing, March 31: Low levels of radiation from Japan’s nuclear blast have reached most of the provinces in China, days after an earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant earlier this month.
According to China’s government, “extremely low” levels of radiation from Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant have spread to most Chinese provinces, AFP reported on Thursday.
The Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a notice late Wednesday that radiation was detected across the country’s heavily populated eastern, northern and southern regions, however, the existing level remains far too low to be a health risk.
Earlier on Monday, Beijing said radioactive iodine was detected in a handful of provinces, but subsequent statements show a steady widening of the affected areas.
The latest ministry notice repeated earlier assertions that the amount of radioactivity was only about one-thousandth of what a person would receive during a 2,000-kilometre (1,200-mile) air flight.
A destructive March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan’s northern coast set off nuclear problems by knocking out power to cooling systems at the Fukushima nuclear plant, and caused radiation leaks.
——–Agencies