Radioactive Risk to Tokyo Limited Even in Worst Case, U.K. Official Says
(Corrects headline to add word consider.) March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Mike Firn reports from Tokyo about the U.K. government's urging of British nationals living in Tokyo and to the north of the city to consider leaving the region due to radiation fears from the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant to the north. Susan Li also speaks. (Source: Bloomberg)
The risks to human health from damage at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic plant are limited to the area around the facility, according to the U.K.’s Chief Scientific Officer John Beddington.
“The 20 kilometer exclusion zone that the Japanese have actually imposed is sensible and proportionate,” Beddington said, according to a transcript of a conference call yesterday. The worst case scenario would result in an explosion that could send radioactive material about 1,600 feet in the air, he said.
Workers at the Fukushima facility, damaged after the March 11 earthquake, are struggling to keep the plant’s reactors cool and to control pressure inside the containment vessels. If they fail to do so, pressure would build up inside the reactors and cause the core to melt, Beddington said. As it melts, the material will fall and react with the concrete and other materials on the floor, he said on a call with the British Embassy in Tokyo.
“In this reasonable worst case you get an explosion,” he said. “Now, that’s really serious, but it’s serious again for the local area. It’s not serious for elsewhere.”
Assuming that weather patterns drive radioactive material toward Tokyo, there would be “absolutely no issue” for human health, he said. Even following the disaster at Chernobyl, there were no radiation-related problems outside the 30 kilometer (18.6 mile) exclusion zone, the scientist said.
The U.K. embassy today recommended nationals currently in Tokyo and to the north of Tokyo to consider leaving the area because of the threat from the Fukushima nuclear facility, as well as disruptions to the supply of goods, transport, communication, power and infrastructure, the British embassy said in a statement on its website.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kari Lundgren in London at klundgren2@bloomberg.net; Mehul Srivastava in New Delhi at msrivastava6@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net.
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