Thailand keeps monitoring radioactive contamination in wake of nuclear crisis in Japan

BANGKOK, March 11 (TNA) - Thai authorities have kept monitoring radioactive contamination even three years after a devastating earthquake with a tsunami in Japan, which triggered a nuclear crisis subsequently. Thailand's Office of Atoms for Peace or OAP said on Tuesday that it has continued watching out for radioactive contamination for three years, after the tsunami in Japan on March 11, 2011 and found safe levels of radiation in food and the environment in the country. OAP Secretary-General Suphan Saengthong told reporters that his office, together with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), had tested 988 samples of food imported from Japan from 2011 to February 2014, including samples of wheat flour, sardine, green tea, mackerel and squids, but no dangerous levels of radioactive contamination were detected. The OAP chief stated, to continually ensure safety, the FDA will, however, send samples of food products to undergo radioactive contamination tests until the situation concerning the leakage at the Japanese nuclear power plant returns to normal. According to the OAP chief, the OAP's stations throughout Thailand have found normal levels of radiation and his office, together with the Department of Fisheries and the Pollution Control Department, have also tested radioactive contamination in seawater and seafood in Thailand and found normal levels of radiation. The OAP's 12 radiation monitoring stations have, meanwhile, watched out for negative impacts of the nuclear leakage in Japan, including those in Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen, Ubon Ratchathani, Phatnum Thani, Songkhla, Bangkok, Ranong, Trat, Phayao, Rayong, Sakon Nakhon and Kanchanaburi provinces. The tsunami on March 11, 2011, which resulted from a massive earthquake, hit a nuclear power plant in Japan's Northeast and radioactive water leaked from the Fukushima power plant on August 20, 2013, causing many countries to have monitored the levels of radioactive contamination.(TNA)