Perilous
Times
Radiation surges continue to contaminate Japan's food and
water supplies
By the CNN Wire Staff
March 23, 2011 3:03 p.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Hong Kong joins U.S. in restricting imports
* Residents make a dash for bottled water
* Tokyo water officials say tap water contains twice the limit
of radioactive iodine
Tokyo (CNN) -- Despite being urged not to hoard bottled water,
residents of Japan's capital on Wednesday snapped it up in droves
after testing showed radioactive material in tap water at levels
unsafe.
The city's water agency said the spike was likely caused by
problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, located 240
kilometers (150 miles) away. Earlier Wednesday, Tokyo government
officials advised residents not to give tap water to infants or
use it in formula after tests at a purification plant detected
high levels of radioactive iodine.
Grocery store owner Seiji Sasaki said he noted a sudden increase
of customers. He had 40 cases of water in his store, but they were
gone quickly.
Meanwhile, officials evacuated some workers at the Fukushima plant
Wednesday afternoon as a black plume of smoke billowed above one
of the reactors, plant owner Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. The
cause of the smoke was unclear.
The team of seven workers were planning to inspect gauges and
instrumentation at reactor No. 3, but were unable to determine
conditions in the control room before evacuating, officials with
Tokyo Electric and Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency
said.
Workers have been scrambling to cool down fuel rods at the nuclear
plant since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and massive tsunami on
March 11 knocked out cooling systems.
Some radiation has been released, officials said, but it was
unclear whether radiation levels spiked after the black smoke was
spotted Wednesday. Japan's nuclear agency said radiation levels
near the plant had not changed, public broadcaster NHK reported.
But in Tokyo, concerns over radiation surged.
Government samples taken Tuesday night found 210 becquerels of
radioactive iodine per kilogram of water -- two times higher than
the limit that the government considers safe for infants.
The amount of iodine detected was lower than the level considered
safe for adults: 300 becquerels per kilogram. A liter of water
weights 1 kilogram.
A becquerel is a measurement of radioactive intensity by weight.
The level set for infants is "very conservative," said Dr. James
Cox, radiation oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston
and a CNN consultant, but elevated radiation levels are considered
a problem for small children, as their thyroid glands are more
susceptible to radiation.
"Erring on the side of caution for the extreme degree for children
makes good sense," Cox said. For adults, "as far as the immediate
health risk, something that would make people sick, I don't think
that would come close to it."
Also Wednesday, Japan's government expanded food shipment
restrictions after the health ministry said tests detected
radioactive materials at levels exceeding legal limits in 11 types
of vegetables grown near the Fukushima plant.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan asked Ibaraki Prefecture to suspend
shipments of raw milk and parsley, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio
Edano told reporters Wednesday. The government of Fukushima
Prefecture also told residents not to eat leafy vegetables, he
said.
Edano said radiation levels in the food would not cause health
problems right away, but if radiation rises, "We are looking at
the possibility of levels reaching levels that may harm human
health."
The decision to prohibit produce sales is another potentially
devastating blow to a part of northeast Japan hit by the
earthquake and tsunami.
Fukushima ranks among Japan's top producer of fruits, vegetables
and rice. Ibaraki, south of Fukushima, supplies Tokyo with a
significant amount of fruits and vegetables and is Japan's
third-largest pork producer.
"This is our livelihood," a Fukushima farmer told Japanese
television network TV Asahi. "It's a huge problem that we are
unable to ship all our produce. We raised (this produce) with our
own hands. It's unbearable that we would have to throw it all
away."
Hong Kong on Wednesday said it was restricting food and milk
imports from certain prefectures over the radiation concerns. The
United States previously announced import alerts covering milk,
milk products, fresh vegetables and fruit from prefectures near
the reactors.
Police say the dual disaster has killed at least 9,487 people and
left at least 15,617 missing, many of them killed as a wall of
water rushed in following the quake.
Meanwhile, about 387,000 evacuees are staying at 2,200 shelters,
Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported. Relief efforts to help them
and other victims continued, with U.S. military helicopters
delivering food, clothes and supplies to some of the hardest-hit
areas.
"We remain focused on fewer than 10 cases of U.S. citizens that
remain unaccounted for in the areas hardest-hit by the earthquake
and tsunami," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters
Wednesday.
In addition to the stories of people struggling to survive in
quake-ravaged towns in northeastern Japan, the plight of workers
braving high radiation levels to solve problems at the troubled
plant has also drawn attention.
Tokyo Electric said Wednesday that two workers were injured at the
plant while working with an electric panel. The workers, whose
injuries did not involve exposure to radiation, were treated by a
doctor at the nearby Fukushima Daini plant.
"We are constantly switching over all the time, since the work
cannot be stopped," one worker told TV Asahi.
"It has settled down quite a lot compared to the beginning, and we
could even begin to see a bright hope that maybe it would somehow
work out in a little bit," another worker said in what the network
touted as the first televised interviews with workers.
But authorities said Wednesday that work was far from over at the
plant.
The Tokyo Fire Department planned to start spraying water into the
spent-fuel storage pool outside the plant's No. 3 reactor
Wednesday, said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and
Industrial Safety Agency. Power has been restored in the control
room at that reactor -- which officials say could be a key step in
bringing cooling systems back online.
"Until we get power restored to the power plant, continuing doing
what they have been doing for the last 12 days is, quite honestly,
the only game in town," said Michael Friedlander, a former senior
operator at three U.S. nuclear power plants who has been following
the situation at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
"It's absolutely essential that they keep the reactor covered with
water as well as continuing to refill it," he said. "But getting
the power restored and getting the equipment moving so they can
get back on track is essential. At that point, we can determine
the emergency is in the final stages."
He predicted power would be restored gradually to the plant over
the next few days. "The power source is going to the main control
room because that is the main nerve center of the entire plant,"
he said. "Once they get that restored, then we have some
instrumentation and we can figure out what's going on in the power
plant that up to this point has been almost impossible to figure
out."
Once that is done, he said power will be sent to individual pieces
of equipment and the situation will be analyzed. He estimated it
could take two weeks or more to get the plant "in a stable, cold
shut-down configuration."
"It is an industrial catastrophe," said Lake Barrett, a nuclear
engineer who directed the initial cleanup and response of the
Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania following a partial core
nuclear meltdown in 1979. "It's a huge plant, and it's been
basically destroyed internally and has high contamination levels
inside. There are areas in the building where no human's going to
go for a long time."
But, Barrett told CNN, "it's also not a health catastrophe -- as
long as the people follow the instructions from the government,
they're going to be safe in Japan."
The No. 3 reactor has been a priority for authorities trying to
contain damage to the plant and stave off a possible meltdown. Its
fuel rods contain plutonium mixed with uranium, which experts say
could cause more harm than regular uranium fuels in the event of a
meltdown.
"We have progress in stabilizing cooling capacity. We most
progressed in the No. 3 reactor," Edano said. "On the other hand,
we are trying to figure out ... the cause of the smoke."
With the nuclear plant's six reactors in various states of
disrepair, concerns have mounted over a potentially larger release
of radioactive material from the facility.
Efforts over the past several days have focused on restoring power
at the facility while fire trucks and cement pumps sprayed water
on spent fuel ponds, which contain used fuel rods with radioactive
material.
Embassies from more than two dozen countries have either closed
down or moved operations to cities south of Tokyo since the
earthquake and the resulting nuclear crisis, the country's Foreign
Ministry said Wednesday.
"There are 25 embassies which either temporarily shut down or
moved its function outside of Tokyo," Foreign Ministry spokesman
Hidenori Sobashima told CNN. Seven of those 25 have moved to
cities such as Osaka, Hiroshima and Kobe, Sobashima said.
CNN's Tim Schwarz and Ingrid Formanek contributed to this report