Measurements taken at 39 sporting venues earmarked to stage the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games have elevated levels of radioactivity according to a citizen's group. The South China Morning Post [3] reports that the group "found caesium-137 at almost every place [they] carried out tests, and there was no caesium here before the accident at Fukushima." Tests were made at the Olympic Village, Media Center, and the highest radiation reading, 0.484 microsieverts per hour, was detected in undergrowth close to Yumenoshima Stadium - significantly higher than the level of 0.23 microsieverts per hour set by the government as the standard for decontamination work going on in the exclusion zone around the nuclear plant. In response to a request, a spokesman for Tokyo 2020 insisted: "Radiation levels in the air and water of Tokyo are safe." So all good then...
Via The South China Morning Post, [3]
A citizens' group in Tokyo has found elevated levels of radioactivity at sporting facilities that will be used in the 2020 Olympic Games and is warning that competitors and the hundreds of thousands of people expected to flock to the city for the event will be putting themselves in danger.
The Citizens' Group for Measuring Radioactive Environment at Facilities for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics claims wind-borne radiation from the four crippled reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant has contaminated a number of future venues.
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The tests were also carried out at the planned site of the Olympic Village and the media centre, with the highest radiation reading - 0.484 microsieverts per hour - detected in undergrowth close to Yumenoshima Stadium, where the equestrian events will be held.
Soil samples collected at the site had 3,040 becquerels of caesium per kilogram.
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While the readings do not pose an immediate threat to human health, members of the group say they are still significantly higher than the level of 0.23 microsieverts per hour set by the government as the standard for decontamination work going on in the exclusion zone around the nuclear plant.
"We found caesium-137 at almost every place we carried out tests, and there was no caesium here before the accident at Fukushima," Mitsuo Tanaka, a member of the group, told the South China Morning Post.
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In response to a request from the Post, a spokesman for Toyko 2020 insisted: "Radiation levels in the air and water of Tokyo are safe.