Over 340 bags of radioactively contaminated waste from Fukushima disaster swept away
A total of 341 bags containing waste contaminated with radioactive substances from decontamination work after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster have been swept into local rivers by recent floods in eastern Japan, the Nikko Municipal Government announced Sept. 17.
Of the total, 334 bags out of 558 bags in the city’s Kobyaku district have been swept away, along with at least another seven bags about 9 kilometers north of the district. Seventeen of them were recovered, but the waste inside the bags was gone, Nikko city officials said.
The 1-cubic-meter capacity bags had each contained soil and weeds generated by decontamination work at parks and along school routes from July 2013 through January 2014. The officials said storage locations were eroded by submerged rivers.
- Bags of tainted waste swept into Fukushima river during torrential rain
- Nearly 700,000 tons of radioactive water stored at Fukushima plant
