DPRK on high alert for radioactive damage from Japan

UPDATE (4/6/2011): According to Yonahp:

North Korea’s official media reported on Tuesday that the country detected traces of radioactive materials in major cities following Japan’s nuclear crisis triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The North said in a report carried by the official Korean Central Broadcasting Station that traces of radioactive iodine and cesium were found in the cities of Pyongyang, Wonsan and Cheongjin, but the report did not disclose detection levels of such materials.

“Radioactivity monitoring stations in Pyongyang, Wonsan and Cheongjin have detected radioactive materials like iodine and cesium, which have not been seen in the past,” an official for North Korea’s meteorological research agency said in the TV report.

The traces were so small that they will not affect public health, the official said, adding that “close attention should be paid to monitoring and forecasting of weather changes.”

The news came as South Korea also reported air detection of radioactive materials after the massive earthquake and tsunami crippled nuclear reactors in Fukushima, sparking concerns of radioactive leaks.

ORIGINAL POST (2011-3-29): According to Yonhap:

North Korea is on high alert for any possible radioactive damage from an unfolding nuclear crisis in neighboring Japan, a senior North Korean scholar said Tuesday during talks with South Korea on a possible volcano in the communist state.

The comment was made by Yoo Yong-geun, head of a North Korean delegation who traveled earlier in the day to this South Korean border town of Munsan to discuss joint ways to respond if Mount Paekdu in the North is found to have an active volcanic core.

“We are actively watching, worrying that radioactive contamination may reach us” from Japan, where firefighters are struggling to contain radioactive leaks from a northeastern nuclear plant hit by a major earthquake and ensuing tsunami.

Yoon did not elaborate on what measures his government was taking to protect its population. Despite the direction of winds that normally blow from west to east, traces of radioactive material have been detected in South Korea, raising alarm here, according to a state nuclear safety agency on Tuesday.

“Due to the proximity, (events in Japan) seem to affect us,” Yoon told four South Korean scholars attending the first-ever inter-Korean volcano talks. Yoon, deputy head of a volcano research institute, added underground water fluctuated and mud seeped from spring water following the 9.0-magnitude earthquake off Japan’s east coast.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea on high alert for radioactive damage from Japan: scholar
Yonhap
Sam Kim
3/29/2011

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3 Responses to “DPRK on high alert for radioactive damage from Japan”

  1. Raid says:

    I don’t think they could do that as I believe all particles that come from a reactor are unique to that reactor , a bit like DNA or a fingerprint