Source of radiation scare in Tokyo turns out to be a box

[News_Editor]

Source of radiation scare in Tokyo turns out to be a box

2011-10-14 21:27:00 GMT+7 (ICT)

TOKYO (BNO NEWS) -- After high radiation levels were detected in the Japanese capital of Tokyo, the country's science ministry on Friday said the radiation was coming from a box stored under a house and was not related to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crisis.

Science ministry official Takao Nakaya said dozens of bottles and test tubes containing a white powdery substance believed to be radium-226 were found stored inside a box and under a house located in Setagaya Ward, in the Tsurumaki District of Tokyo, the Japan Times reported.

Local authorities had previously cordoned off the area after the high level of radiation was detected, triggering fear among residents believing the source could be the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which is around 223 kilometers (143 miles) away from Setagaya Ward.

The house is owned by a 90-year-old woman who had stopped living there in February. However, she explained she had no idea that the box had been stored underneath the house's floorboards. Her husband, who died around 10 years ago, was an office worker and did not work with radioactive isotopes.

The woman had lived at the house for over 50 years, from 1953 to last February, and while the ministry estimated that she had been exposed to about 30 millisieverts per year, no ill effects have been confirmed. Her bed was located about two meters (6.5 feet) away from the box.

Radiation levels reached 600 microsieverts per hour near the bottles, which had been contained in a wooden box, although at a distance of one meter (3.2 feet), levels were only 20 microsieverts per hour. After finding the containers, authorities locked the bottles and tubes into a lead container. As a result, the radiation level declined to between 0.1 and 0.35 microsievert per hour.

It remains unclear where the box comes from.

Japan has been facing an ongoing nuclear crisis since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was severely damaged on March 11 when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and a subsequent tsunami devastated the country. The disaster disabled the cooling systems of the plant and radioactive elements leaked into the sea and were later found in water, air and food products in some parts of Japan.

At least 15,813 people were killed as a result of the earthquake and tsunami while 3,971 others remain missing. There are still more than 88,000 people who are staying in shelters in 21 prefectures around Japan.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-10-14

[bkkjames]

Begs the question about the long-term monitoring for such things, or are they saying the box only became radioactive recently?

[Scott]

Interesting. I hope they found how the box got there, who put it there and how long it has been there.