Some submarine organisms in waters off Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, carried radioactive cesium exceeding the government-imposed provisional limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram, a discovery that shed some light on radioactive substances from the crippled Fukushima nuclear complex transferring along the food chain, researchers said.
A team of researchers including Takashi Ishimaru, professor at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, took samples of four kinds of submarine organisms, including sand worms, from waters about 10 kilometers from Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, and measured them for radiation in July 2011.
They detected 854 becquerels of cesium per kilogram in echinocardium cordatum, or the sea potato, which is a kind of sea urchin, and 471 becquerels per kilogram of cesium in sand worms. The researcher conducted a similar research in the same area in October 2011 and detected 582 becquerels of cesium per kilogram in echinocardium cordatum and 328 becquerels of cesium per kilogram in sand worms. The research results were unveiled in Tokyo on March 21. Deep-sea fish such as flounder feed on sand worms.
The Fukushima Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations, which groups six local fisheries cooperative associations, has been refraining voluntarily from fishing since the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant.
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