Tapwater in Tokyo declared unsafe for babies

Radiation levels have risen to more than twice the safety limit, adding to fears about food contamination.

Radiation has already seeped into vegetables, raw milk, and sea water since the earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant in Japan nearly two weeks ago.

Broccoli was added to a list of contaminated vegetables and the United States has banned Japanese dairy and other produce from the region.

Scientists said tapwater in Tokyo measured 210 becquerels per litre – more than twice the recommended limit of 100 becquerels per litre for infants.

The unsettling new development affecting Japan’s largest city, home to some 13 million in the city centre and 39 million residents in the greater Tokyo area, came as nuclear officials struggled to stabilise the damaged reactor 140 miles to the north.

Explosions and fires have erupted in four of the plant’s six reactors, leaking radioactive steam into the air.

Progress in cooling the overheated facility has been intermittent, disrupted by rises in radiation, elevated pressure in reactors and overheated storage pools.

The plant operator had hoped to restore power to cooling pumps at the unit within days, but experts warned the work included the risk of starting fires as electricity was restored through equipment potentially damaged in the tsunami.

In a new setback, black smoke billowed from Unit 3, prompting another evacuation of workers from the plant yesterday.

A Nuclear Safety Agency spokesman said: “We don’t know the reason for the smoke.”

A mother of two children aged two and five, Etsuko Nomura, said: “It is really scary. It is like a vicious negative spiral from the nuclear disaster. We have contaminated milk and vegetables, and now tapwater in Tokyo, and I’m wondering what’s next.”

Infants are particularly vulnerable to radioactive iodine, which can cause thyroid cancer, experts say, but limits only become harmful when consumed at a sustained rates.

Officials were attempting to spread calm last night, advising parents that they should stop giving the tap water to babies but that there was no problem if they had already had consumed small amounts.

They said the levels posed no immediate health risk for children or adults.

“Even if you drink this water for one year, it will not affect people’s health,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

His words were echoed by Dr Lim Sang-moo, director of nuclear medicine at the Korea Cancer Centre Hospital, who advised Tokyo residents not to worry.

Parents might want to be more cautious if they have a choice about what water to drink. “Nobody wants to drink radioactive water,” he said. “But it’s not a medical problem but a psycho-social problem: The stress that people get from the radioactivity is more dangerous than the radioactivity itself.”

Fallout from the damaged nuclear plant is expected to reach Europe this week, but experts say the particles will be minuscule.

A plume from the Fukushima complex carrying trace amounts of radioactive iodine has been detected in Iceland, said the country’s Radiation Safety Authority.

However, it added, the concentration was “less than a millionth” of what was found in European countries in the wake of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine that spewed radiation over a large distance.

Elsewhere, French authorities said very weakly contaminated air was expected to reach France yesterday while Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection said that if and when radiation arrived it would be in marginal amounts that would pose neither a risk to humans or the environment.