Japan: Kashiwa govt wants help with hotspot (too much for local gov. to handle)

Yomiuri Shimbun ^ | 10/28/11 | Tadao Baba and Eiji Noyori

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Kashiwa govt wants help with hotspot

Tadao Baba and Eiji Noyori / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers

Officials from the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry check a location in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, on Sunday where radiation of 57.5 microsieverts per hour was detected.

KASHIWA, Chiba--A radiation hotspot in Kashiwa has still not been decontaminated a week after radiation of 57.5 microsieverts per hour was recorded on a city-owned plot of land.

The city insists such a high level of radiation is beyond the level a local government can handle on its own, though it decided to conduct surveys to find other hotspots after many residents expressed anxiety over the issue.

The Kashiwa municipal government said last Friday that radiation of 57.5 microsieverts per hour had been detected about 30 centimeters below the surface of the plot of land. Its subsequent examination of soil at the location detected radioactive cesium of up to 276,000 becquerels per kilogram.

Airborne radiation of 2 microsieverts per hour was recorded one meter above the ground--the same level detected in Iitatemura, Fukushima Prefecture, which was designated part of the expanded evacuation zone after the beginning of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

On Sunday, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry said Kashiwa's hotspot was likely caused by the Fukushima crisis.

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