Russia to send mission to assess Sea of Japan nuclear contamination

[News_Editor]

Russia to send mission to assess Sea of Japan nuclear contamination

2011-04-16 02:54:49 GMT+7 (ICT)

MOSCOW (BNO NEWS) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday announced an expedition to the Sea of Japan to assess the effects of the nuclear contamination.

After a meeting with Russian Geographic Society (RGS), the Premier said that the team included specialists from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Committee on Hydrometeorology and the Russian Agency for Health and Consumer Rights (Rospotrebnadzor).

"Our specialists will define more precisely what the characteristics of the nuclear contamination in the Sea of Japan are, and they will also hold environmental and seismic monitoring," Putin said.

The expedition, supported by RGS, will depart on a research vessel to an area in the Sea of Japan, north-western Pacific Ocean. They will assess the negative impact on the environment, wildlife, and ocean ecosystems caused by the recent natural disasters and the nuclear crisis.

"This is a complex expedition which will run in two stages," said Artur Chilingarov, Russia's special envoy to the Arctic and Antarctica. "The expedition as a whole is expected to last for about four months."

The first stage is scheduled for April 22 and will last 24 days. During this period, experts will study the area stretching from the disputed Kuril Islands to Kamchatka Peninsula, as said by Chilingarov.

"Russia has already sent to Japan groups of rescuers, humanitarian assistance, and now we will employ our considerable scientific and practical experience," added PM Putin.

Russia recently voiced its concern over the release of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. On Tuesday, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency upgraded the severity level of the ongoing nuclear crisis from an international scale level 5 to a level 7, matching 1986's Chernobyl crisis.

The evaluation was based on an estimated amount of radioactive material released into the external environment. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis has released about 10 percent of that from the Chernobyl incident.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), Fukushima's operator, admitted that the radiation leakage could eventually surpass that from the former Soviet nuclear plant. The nuclear station was damaged after the powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

More than 27,000 people were killed and missing in northeastern Japan. The disasters disabled the cooling systems of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Radioactive elements leaked into the sea and were later found in water, air and food products in some parts of Japan.

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