By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Experts conducting round-the-clock monitoring in Russia’s Far East said Saturday that radiation levels did not exceed natural background despite the accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant in March.
“As of Saturday morning, we have not detected radiation above natural background levels in Far Eastern regions [of Russia],” said a representative of the Emergency Situations Ministry’s Far Eastern regional center.
Background radiation is what is constantly present in the environment and is emitted from a variety of natural and artificial sources.
The official said there were 630 fixed and mobile stations monitoring radiation levels across Russia’s Far East, operated by the Emergency Situations Ministry, the Hydrometeorological Service, Russian sanitary watchdog Rospotrebnadzor and the military.
Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant was badly damaged by the powerful earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan March 11.
Fukushima’s operator has since been struggling to stop radioactive leaks from the plant’s crippled reactors.
Russian officials have consistently said there is no evidence the radiation has spread to Russia’s Pacific coast and they have advised people against taking radiation antidotes, but fears of nuclear fallout from the crippled nuclear plant have sparked a surge in sales of iodine-rich kelp in Russia’s Far East.
Iodine lessens the amount of radiation the human body can absorb.
Meanwhile, 47 Japanese automobiles indicating high levels of radioactivity remain in the port at the Russian Far East city of Vladivostok.
The Russian Geographic Society will next week send an expedition to the Sea of Japan to monitor the levels of nuclear contamination in the water, and check on seismic processes in an area stretching from the Kuril Islands to Kamchatka Peninsula.