Farmland in parts of Japan is no longer safe because of high levels of radiation in the soil, scientists have warned, as the country struggles to recover from the Fukushima atomic disaster.
A team of international researchers said food production would likely be "severely impaired" by the elevated levels of caesium found in soil samplesacross eastern Fukushima in the wake of meltdowns at the tsunami-hit plant.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, suggests farming in neighbouring areas may also suffer because of radiation, although levels discovered there were within legal limits.
"Fukushima prefecture as a whole is highly contaminated," especially to the northwest of the nuclear power plant, the researchers said.
The study looked at caesium-137, which has a half life of 30 years and therefore affects the environment for decades.
The legal limit for concentrations in soil where rice is grown of the sum of caesium-134 and caesium-137, which are always produced together, is 5,000 becquerels per kilogram (2.2 pounds) in Japan.
No comments:
Post a Comment