nuclear-news

Japanese ire over radiation limit for kids. Herald Sun AAP , May 23, 2011  FURIOUS parents at the centre of Japan’s atomic crisis and hundreds of their supporters rallied in Tokyo today against revised nuclear safety standards in schools they say are putting children at risk.

Japanese children can now be exposed to 20 times the radiation that was permissible before the March 11 tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant, sparking the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl. Around 400 protesters, many from areas around the stricken plant, flocked to the education and science ministry to demand a rethink on the new limit, which allows exposure of up to 20 millisieverts a year.

A group of Fukushima residents submitted a letter for the education minister demanding the ministry do all it can to lower radiation levels at schools and offer financial support.

Protest organisers said the radiation limit for playgrounds was about six times as much as the 0.6 microsievert-per-hour legal maximum under which under-18s are allowed to work…….The nuclear crisis remains unresolved and tens of thousands of people are still unable to return to homes, farms and businesses in a 20-kilometre zone around the radiation-spewing plant.

More than 20 elementary and junior high schools within 30 kilometres have been forced to close since the accident, affecting some 5000 pupils, the Yomiuri daily newspaper reported today….http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/japanese-ire-over-radiation-limit-for-kids/story-e6frf7jx-1226061484710