Nuclear radiation levels from Fukushima nuclear power plant not harmful to humans: IAEA

Tokyo, Mar.19 (ANI): International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts have said that the radiation levels detected in Japan and areas surrounding it, post the nuclear crisis in its Fukushima nuclear power plant, do not pose any harm to human health.

Graham Andrew, scientific and technical adviser to the International Atomic Energy Agency's head Yukiya Amano, has said that radiation levels detected in Tokyo and other cities, post the explosions in the reactors remain far from levels which would require action. In other words, they are not dangerous to human health."

The IAEA has sent a radiation monitoring team to Japan to help determine whether any dangerous radiation has been released from the crippled nuclear plant.

The first measurements in Tokyo showed no indication of iodine 131 or cesium 137 which are fission products from the fuel, The Herald Sun quoted Andrew saying.

Japan is going through a major crisis after being hit by a magnitude 8.9 earthquake and tsunami last Friday, which damaged cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant causing explosions in some of the reactors and radiation leakage in and around the plant.

Japan has now upgraded the accident at Fukushima from level four to level five out of seven on an international scale of nuclear accidents, putting it on the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, although some experts say it is more serious.

Workers at the plant continue their desperate attempts to spray water into the overheated fuel rod pools to prevent a further disaster.

The IAEA has said that although the situation has not worsened in the last two days, things could still go wrong.

On Thursday, two SDF CH-47 helicopters had dumped water in the damaged No 3 reactor, followed by five fire and rescue trucks equipped with high-pressure water canons shooting around 30 tons of water at the reactor later in the day.

Gregory Jaczko, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman has said that it could take several weeks to cool down the reactors.

Japan's multiple crises has prompted international reassessment of nuclear safety and given Japan its worst disaster since the Second World War. It has also stirred up memories of Japan's worst nuclear nightmare, when the United States had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. (ANI)