Radioactive water won't reach Taiwan for 250 days: experts

China Post -

The radiation-contaminated seawater from the earthquake-hit Fukushima nuclear power plants won't reach Taiwan for at least 250 days. Therefore, there is no need for people in Taiwan to panic over the possible radiation, ocean environment experts said yesterday.

Professor Hu Chien-hua at the Department of Marine Environmental Informatics of the National Taiwan Ocean University (NTOU) said that the black tide, also known as the Kuroshio current, in the sea off the coast where the Fukushima power plant is located keeps flowing northward.

The radiation-contaminated seawater will flow north to North Pacific and then flow to the west coast of the U.S. before finally flowing westward along the equator to Taiwan.

“It will take 250 to 365 days for the radiation-contaminated seawater to reach Taiwan. Accordingly, Taiwan's seawater won't suffer any radioactive pollution,” Hu said.

As to whether the radiation pollutants will affect Taiwan's fishing industry, Professor Liao Cheng-hsin of the Department of Environmental Biology and Fisheries Science of the NTOU, said fish products caught by Taiwan's offshore fishing boats would be edible.

Liao said that Taiwan's offshore fishing boats seldom sail to the outer seas of Japan, instead they operate mainly off the Taiwan coast.

Read more...

Posted via http://batavia08.posterous.com batavia08's posterous