Fukushima disaster’s marine fallout

Nuclear contamination poses long-term threat to ocean ecosystem and to Japan’s fishing industry.

Japan Fukushima boat

A new report shows the March 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan is now also responsible for the world’s worst nuclear sea contamination and the prefecture’s governor has called for all 10 of the area’s reactors to be scrapped.

During the peak of Ukraine’s Chernobyl cataclysm of 1986, the Black Sea was registering 1,000 becquerels per cubic metre of water; this appears miniscule in comparison to nuclear levels at Fukushima’s peak recorded at 100,000 becquerels.

Scientists first believed the ocean would dilute the radioactivity, but Al Jazeera has learned that dangerous concentrations of radioactive caesium remain.

 

Al Jazeera’s Steve Chao reports from Fukushima, Japan.

Source: Al Jazeera