Radiation too high in Fukushima rice, government cuts shipments
Tokyo (AsiaNews /
Agencies) - Japan will reduce rice shipments from an area of Fukushima
prefecture because of high radiation levels detected in a sample. The
government has since imposed new rules on controls, it is the first time that a
load has exceeded safety standards. The
restriction covers the area of Nishifukuro in the city of Sukagawa: the cereal examined contains 110
becquerels of radioactive cesium. The limit is 100 becquerels.
Officials
from the Ministry of Agriculture, forestry and fishing are checking all
shipments of rice from the area. Wataru
Amano, from the Department of Agriculture of the Government Office of
Fukushima, ensures that shipments will resume on a regular basis after
confirming the food security of 12 million bags of rice produced in the
prefecture. "The
restriction - he added - will not have a serious impact on the supply of rice,
because the affected area provides less than 1% of the total production of rice
in Fukushima."
According
to the Ministry of Agriculture, in 2011 the prefecture of Fukushima was the 7th
producer of rice in Japan, 4.3% of the national harvest. However,
production fell by 20%, to 351,900 tons, following the government's decision to
limit planting, after the explosion of Fukushima's nuclear power plant.
On
11 March 2011 an earthquake struck the northern coast of Japan. It
unleashed a tsunami that swept away towns and villages in the prefectures of
Sendai, Miyagi and Fukushima and caused considerable damage to the Daiichi
nuclear reactors. In more than 19
thousand people were killed in the tragedy. The
radiation emitted during the partial meltdown of the plant contaminated the
local products, vegetables, milk and beef.
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06/03/2018 11:19
