Japan issues warnings on consuming produce, water
(03-23) 04:00 PDT Tokyo - --
Fears over Japan's food and water supply escalated Wednesday after authorities announced they had discovered radioactive material above the legal limit in 11 types of vegetables and radioactive substances in water produced at a Tokyo purifying station.
Officials warned residents not to eat the vegetables produced in several prefectures near the badly damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility and recommended that infants not ingest tap water in Tokyo.
Tokyo officials said they would distribute three 550-milliliter bottles of water to every household in the capital where an infant was living - some 80,000 households in all.
Meanwhile, emergency work to repair the Dai-ichi plant was halted again when smoke was seen blowing from the complex Wednesday afternoon, prompting the second evacuation of workers in the past three days.
Crews have been attempting to restore electrical power to four of Dai-ichi's six nuclear reactors, which are still in various states of overheating. Some of the reactors have spewed radioactive particles into the air, leading to the contamination of crops, milk and water.
The March 11 earthquake and tsunami has left 9,300 people dead and 13,786 missing, the National Police Agency reported. And the Japanese government said Wednesday that the escalating catastrophes have caused up to $309 billion in damages. That estimate is far higher than the $235 billion figure suggested by the World Bank earlier this week.
The government's warning on tap water sparked fears among many mothers of young children in Tokyo, such as Mitsue Watanabe, 39, who described herself as "really worried." She said she called a couple of stores to try to find bottled water, but the stores were sold out.
The list of contaminated vegetables includes broccoli, cabbage, turnips, parsley and other green leaf vegetables, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said. Earlier in the week, government officials found elevated radiation levels in raw milk and spinach in several prefectures near the Daiichi plant.