Levels of radiation recorded around Taiwan were normal yesterday, the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) reported on its Web site.
Radiation levels recorded by 30 monitoring stations around the country remained at 0.2 microsieverts per hour, the council said.
The report came amid a nuclear crisis that continues to unfold in Japan. Three reactors at a Japanese nuclear power plant were severely damaged by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The troubled reactors have been emitting radiation into the atmosphere, causing concern about the possibility of radioactive contamination.
Local meteorologists said on Wednesday that prevailing weather patterns meant that radioactive fallout from Japan was not expected to hit Taiwan over the coming days.
In other news, Atomic Energy Council Minister Tsai Chuen-horng (蔡春鴻) said that of the 4,500 travelers arriving from Japan who were screened for radiation at the airports, only 26 were found to have excessive levels of radiation on their clothes or person.
However, this does not mean that these people were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, although there is a high probability they did come into contact with radioactive fallout, Tsai said at a press conference organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus.
The council plans to further expand the passenger screenings to include seaports, the minister said.
Taiwan is also continuing to inspect food imports from Japan for radioactive contamination, but had so far not discovered anything out of the ordinary, he said.
A total of 36 Japanese food products have been sampled for tests since Japan’s nuclear disaster started, and the radiation levels in all of those products had been found to be within legal limits, Tsai said.
With nuclear safety the subject of widespread concern following events in Japan, he said that the authorities expected to complete a geological survey of local nuclear power plants next year, as part of an effort to determine whether the earthquake-proof measures currently in place are sufficient to withstand a powerful earthquake.
The AEC has asked the National Science Council to help speed up the process, Tsai said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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