A map of radioactive contamination levels has been produced after a coordinated large-manpower effort of soil sampling (MEXT, 2011).
The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry has set allowable radioactive contamination levels for grazing grass and asked 16 prefectures to check fields in areas where higher-than-normal levels of atmospheric radiation have been detected, they said.
An environmental survey was carried out in these mine areas of Sabugal municipality to assess radioactive contamination through measuring radioactivity levels in surface waters, river sediments, groundwater, and horticulture products.
At the time of the February accident, more than 20 WIPP workers suffered low level radioactive contamination, even though none of them were underground.
This strategy has become the world's principal model for handling severe radioactive contamination at the landscape level.
The French embassy put out a safety alert to its nationals living in Tokyo, noting that north-easterly winds from the area around Fukushima could bring low-level radioactive contamination to the capital, 250km away, within 10 hours.
In Malaysia, where the giant rare earth refinery is under construction near the eastern port of Kuantan, regulators are delaying approval for an operating permit amid public concern about naturally occurring low-level radioactive contamination of the rare earth ore, which will be mined in Australia.
The conception of this patient was temporally and geographically associated with high-level radioactive contamination following the Chernobyl accident (Turner et al. 2003).
The plan does not describe the types and level of radioactive contamination, the agency concluded in its recently released review.
The agency said these operations posed no risk to human health, as the level of radioactive contamination was low.
