Thailand bans some Japanese imports

11 Apr 2011

Thai health officials have temporarily banned the import of certain produce from Japanese provinces near the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. The move follows the detection of radiation contamination in vegetables and other produce brought into Thailand by Japanese travellers.

The 12 affected Japanese provinces that the import ban applies to are Fukushima, Tokyo, Gunma, Ibaraki, Yamagata, Tochigi, Yamanashi, Miyagi, Niigata, Nagano, Saitama and Chiba. The ban is effective from today and covers vegetables, fruit, meat and dairy products, but not seafood articles.

On 1 April, officials at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport found that mustard family plants wasabi and mizuba, that had been hand carried in by passengers arriving from Tokyo’s Narita Airport, had high levels of radioactive iodine 131.

Dr Pipat Yingseree, from Thailand’s Food and Drug Administration Department said he planned to talk over additional measures with officers from Thailand’s agriculture and customs departments to ensure that food here remained safe for human consumption.

The Fukushima nuclear facility was badly damaged in the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami that hit northeast Japan on 11 March. The plant’s cooling systems were wiped out in the quake and workers have been fighting to save reactors from overheating in the hope of averting a big release of radiation.

Initially Japanese officials said that the problems at Fukushima posed no health risks, but they have just announced that the evacuation zone around the facility will be increased beyond the current 20km radius. The move follows new data collated that shows accumulated radiation levels are increasing.

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