Tokyo, Aug 27(ANI): Japan Government has estimated that the amount of radioactive caesium-137 released so far by the Fukushima nuclear pant is equal to that of 168 Hiroshima bombs.
However, government nuclear experts said there was no comparison between the World War II bomb blast and the Fukushima meltdown, the Telegraph reports.
Unlike Fukushima meltdown, the Hiroshima bomb blasts had killed most victims in the intense heatwave of a mid-air nuclear explosion and the highly radioactive fallout from its mushroom cloud.
"An atomic bomb is designed to enable mass-killing and mass-destruction by causing blast waves and heat rays and releasing neutron radiation. It is not rational to make a simple comparison only based on the amount of isotopes released," the Tokyo Shimbun daily quoted a government official, as saying.
The three nuclear reactors, which were crippled by March 11 earthquake and tsunami have released about 15,000 tera becquerels of caesium-137.
Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan's cabinet has submitted the estimated figures of radiation to the lower house's promotion of technology and innovation committee.
Japanese Government officials were not available to confirm the report.
The Hiroshima bomb and its fallout had killed some 140,000 people.
Japan Government had declared a 20-kilometre evacuation and no-go zone around the Fukushima plant after the March 11 quake and tsunami triggered the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
A recent government survey showed that some areas within the 20-kilometre zone are contaminated with radiation equivalent to over 500 millisieverts per year, which is 25 times more than the government's annual limit. (ANI)
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