The Japanese environment ministry claimed on Thursday that construction workers stole and sold possibly radioactive scrap metal from near the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant.
The materials went missing from a museum being razed in a special zone around four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the atomic plant in northeast Japan that was destroyed by a tsunami in 2011.
Although people were allowed to return to the area in 2022 after extensive cleaning, radiation levels can still be elevated, and the location is bordered by a no-go zone.
In late July, the environment ministry was informed of the theft by workers from a joint venture undertaking the demolition work and is exchanging information with police, according to ministry spokesperson Kei Osada.
According to Osada, the metal may have been utilized in the building’s frame, which means that these metals were unlikely to be exposed to high levels of radiation when the nuclear accident occurred.
Metals from the region must be transported to an interim storage facility or properly disposed of if radiation levels are excessive. They can be reused if they are low.
However, Osada stated that the stolen scrap metals had not been tested for radiation levels.
As per the reports, the workers sold the scrap metal to enterprises outside the zone for roughly 900,000 yen ($6,000).
It is unknown how much metal went missing, where it is currently, or whether it constitutes a health danger.
The tsunami on March 11, 2011, caused several meltdowns at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant, resulting in the world’s biggest nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
After considerable decontamination efforts, many regions near the plant have been judged safe for people to return, with only 2.2 percent of the prefecture still under no-go restrictions.
Japan began dumping more than a billion litres of effluent gathered in around 1,000 steel tanks at the site into the Pacific Ocean last month.
TEPCO, the plant’s operator, claims the water is safe, and the UN atomic watchdog agrees, but China accuses Japan of treating the ocean like a sewer.
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