JAPAN’S embassy in South Korea has begun posting the daily radiation levels in the Fukushima area and Seoul, following new questions on the lingering effects of the 2011 nuclear disaster.

The embassy website said the information reflects the fact that “interest in radiation levels in Japan has recently been increasing, particularly in South Korea”.

The move comes amid worsening ties between Japan and South Korea over a long-running disagreement about the Japanese use of forced labour in South Korea during World War II. The two countries have taken retaliatory trade measures, and South Korea has tightened radiation checks on Japanese food imports.

The readings showed that levels in three Japanese cities are almost the same as in major cities outside Japan, including Seoul, said the embassy.

“The Japanese government hopes that the South Korean people’s understanding about Japan’s radiation levels will deepen as we continue to provide accurate information based on scientific evidence, and explain it fully with clarity,” it said in both Japanese and Korean on the website.

Questions have also been raised about the safety of the Olympics to be held in Tokyo next year, with some South Korean lawmakers pushing for a boycott and travel ban over what they have portrayed as radiation risks from Fukushima.

A 9.0-magnitude earthquake in March 2011 triggered a massive tsunami that knocked out cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant on the Pacific coast in the nation’s northeast. The facility spewed radioactive materials into the air, soil and water, in the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.

Fukushima City, some 70km from the stricken plant, will host baseball and softball games during the Olympics.

And, food from the Fukushima region is expected to be served to Olympic athletes as part of Tokyo’s efforts to tout the safety of produce from the area.

The Japanese embassy in Seoul began posting the radiation levels last week, showing figures for two cities in Fukushima prefecture, along with levels in Tokyo and Seoul.

The latest post showed the level in Fukushima City at 0.135 microsieverts per hour, a similar reading to 0.12 in Seoul. The level in Fukushima prefecture’s Iwaki City, 30km from the plant, was 0.06, while in Tokyo, more than 200km away, it was 0.036.

The updates use data from radiation monitors in both countries, as well as local offices in Fukushima.

One microsievert is a thousandth of a millisievert, and the observed levels translate into an annual dose of 1.182 millisieverts in Fukushima City and 1.051 in Seoul.

The International Commission on Radiological Protection recommends a yearly limit of 1.0 millisievert for the general public. But, the worldwide average annual dose from natural background radiation is 2.4 millisieverts, according to a United Nations report. – AFP, September 30, 2019.