Countries around the world shunned Japanese food imports yesterday as radioactive steam leaked from a disaster-struck nuclear plant, straining nerves in Tokyo.
The grim toll of dead and missing from Japan’s monster quake and tsunami on March 11 topped 26,000, as hundreds of thousands remained huddled in evacuation shelters and fears grew in Tokyo over water safety.
The damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant from the calamity and a series of explosions has stoked global anxiety. The US and Hong Kong have already restricted Japanese food, and France wants the EU to do the same.
Russia ordered a halt to food imports from four prefectures — Fukushima, Gunma, Ibaraki and Tochigi — near the stricken plant 250km northeast of Tokyo.
Moscow also placed in quarantine a Panama-flagged cargo ship that had passed near the plant and put its 19 crew under medical supervision after detecting radiation levels three times the norm in the engine room.
Australia banned produce from the area, including seaweed and seafood, milk, dairy products, fresh fruit and vegetables.
However, it said that Japanese food already on store shelves was safe, as it had shipped before the quake, and that “the risk of Australian consumers being exposed to radionuclides in food imported from Japan is negligible.”
Singapore also suspended imports of milk products and other foodstuffs from the same four prefectures and Canada implemented enhanced import controls on products from the quartet.
“Food safety issues are an additional dimension of the emergency,” three UN agencies said in a joint statement issued in Geneva, pledging they were “committed to mobilizing their knowledge and expertise” to help Japan.
Japan was taking the right actions, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization said, adding that: “Food monitoring is being implemented, measurements of radioactivity in food are taking place, and the results are being communicated publicly.”
At the source of the radiation, white smoke could be seen wafting from four of the Fukushima plant’s six reactors.
Fire engines again aimed their high-pressure water jets at the No. 3 reactor, a day after a plume of dark smoke there forced workers to evacuate.
Highlighting the risks taken by the emergency crew, three workers were exposed to high radiation — at least 170 millisieverts. Two of them were sent to hospital after they stepped into a puddle of water that reached the skin on their legs despite their radiation suits.
Engineers have now linked up an external electricity supply to all six reactors and are testing system components and equipment in an effort to restart the cooling systems and stabilize the reactors. They partially restored power to the control room at reactor No. 1.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
STRAIT OF HORMUZ: In the case of a prolonged blockade by Iran, Taiwan would look to sources of LNG outside the Middle East, including Australia and the US Taiwan would not have to ration power due to a shortage of natural gas, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, after reports that the Strait of Hormuz was closed amid the conflict in the Middle East. The government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies for this month and contingency measures are in place if the conflict extends into next month, Kung told lawmakers. Saying that 25 percent of Taiwan’s natural gas supplies are from Qatar, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) asked about the situation in light of the conflict. There would be “no problems” with
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS