By Lee Hyo-sik
Rain forecast for Seoul and central parts of the country today may contain small amounts of radioactive iodine and cesium leaked from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, raising public concerns over “radioactive rainfall.”
However, experts say any amount of radioactive material in the rainwater will be too small to pose any noticeable risk to public health or the environment, warning against an overblown panic here over the ongoing nuclear crisis in the neighboring country.
“The amount detected in rainwater early this week fell short of posing any health risks even if a person was exposed to it constantly.
The story will be pretty much the same for the rain forecast for Saturday,” principal researcher Kim Chang-kyu at the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety said.
He said radioactive iodine was detected at only three monitoring points out of 13 Thursday, stressing that traces in the forecast rain will likely be much smaller than that of the previous rainfall.
“Even if we drink the rainwater directly, it will not negatively affect our health. Additionally, the yellow dust blowing from China may contain traces of radioactive iodine and cesium, but too minimal to cause any serious health problems in humans,” Kim stressed.
Early this week, radioactive iodine and cesium in the atmosphere were detected at 12 different checkpoints set up and monitored by KINS, including Seoul, Daejeon, Busan and Jeju Island.
Atmosphere iodine concentration levels for Seoul stood at 0.079 millibecquerel (mBq) per square meter, with the number for Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, standing at 0.071 mBq.
Additionally, traces of iodine were found in rainwater in Seoul and Chuncheon as the analysis of rain showed maximum iodine concentration levels of 2.48 becquerel (Bq) per liter of rainwater in Seoul and 0.308 Bq in Chuncheon.
The isotopes of iodine and cesium detected are not normally found in nature, meaning their presence is evidence of radiation leaked from a nuclear facility.
Meanwhile, the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said that the expected rainfall will not likely contain the yellow dust blowing from China.
“Even though we expect the worst yellow dust storm in decades this spring, due to severe droughts in northeast China and Inner Mongolia, we don’t think the yellow sand will affect Korea this weekend. In my opinion, we should be more worried about lead and other harmful heavy metals included in the yellow dust than radioactive particles spewed from Japan’s stricken nuclear reactors,” KMA vice spokesman Kim Hoe-cheol said.
He said up to 5 milliliters of rain will fall in Seoul, Incheon, as well as Gyeonggi, Chungcheong and Gangwon provinces by midday, but temperatures will reach as high as 21 degrees Celsius today.