ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION:OSLO – Harmless traces of radioactive material from Japan's nuclear accident may reach Europe in a week's time.
The traces will form part of a background of atmospheric radiation which is normally ignored.
Fallout from the 1945 US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and multiple nuclear tests by many governments, along with accidents such as that at Chernobyl, have over the decades spread a pervasive background of radiation around the globe.
“We expect that maybe in seven days from now we could detect some atoms, with very, very exact instruments, here in Sweden,” Klas Idehaag, reactor inspector at the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority, said yesterday. “But it will be no effect on the environment or for people,” he said.
Low levels of radiation from Japan’s Fukushima plant, crippled by an earthquake and tsunami a week ago, have been detected on the US west coast after crossing the Pacific, diplomatic sources said in Vienna yesterday.
Background radiation building up in the environment since 1945 means steel made before then, which as a result has a low radiation count, is favoured for uses such as in sensitive medical equipment or Geiger counters. Major sources of old steel have included the German fleet scuppered in 1919 off Scotland.
On Thursday, President Barack Obama said he did not expect harmful levels of radiation to reach the US from Japan. US fear about the leak has pushed up demand online for potassium iodide antidotes and Geiger counters.
A major accident at the Fukushima plant, where workers are trying to cool crippled reactors, could spew dangerous radioactivity in Japan but is unlikely to end up as a global threat. “We believe it won’t have any health consequences for any countries except for Japan,” said Ole Reistad of the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority. – (Reuters)