WHO, UNDP, UNEP and UNICEF have partnered to create a new compendium of 500 actions aimed at reducing death and diseases driven by environmental risk factors, the first such resource to unite this expertise from across the UN system. Environmental pollution and other environmental risks cause 24 per cent of …
The West Bengal Government has devised a multi-pronged strategy to curb the growing environmental degradation including development of appropriate technology to curb industrial and other pollution and introduction of environment guards. The Environment Minister, Mr Sudarshan Ghosh Dastidar, said a committee has been set up to suggest ways to tackle …
Greenpeace said on Monday that schools and surrounding areas located 60 km (38 miles) from Japan's tsunami-hit nuclear power plant were unsafe for children, showing radiation readings as much as 70 times internationally accepted levels. The environmental group took samples at and near three schools in Fukushima city, well outside …
Not since the grim period after World War II has Germany had significant blackouts, but it is now bracing for that possibility after shutting down half its nuclear reactors practically overnight. Nuclear plants have long generated nearly a quarter of Germany’s electricity. But after the tsunami and earthquake that sent …
The first comprehensive survey of soil contamination from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant showed that 33 locations spread over a wide area have been contaminated with long-lasting radioactive cesium, the government said Tuesday. The survey of 2,200 locations within a 100-kilometer (62-mile) radius of the crippled plant found that those …
Areas surrounding Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant could remain uninhabitable for decades due to high radiation, the government warned on Saturday as it struggles to clean up after the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Japan faces the daunting task of decontaminating large areas of land around the Fukushima Daiichi …
The Japanese government on Friday unveiled a plan to reduce radiation levels in Fukushima prefecture by 50% in two years, amid residents' growing concerns about the public health impact of the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Under the plan, the central government will be held directly responsible for …
Despite continuing fears over the safety of food from the area of the disaster-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japan has lifted a ban on beef shipments from there that it had imposed just a month ago, when meat contaminated with radioactive material was found to have reached Japanese supermarkets. …
Japan's government estimates the amount of radioactive caesium-137 released by the Fukushima nuclear disaster so far is equal to that of 168 Hiroshima bombs, a news report said Thursday. Government nuclear experts, however, said the World War II bomb blast and the accidental reactor meltdowns at Fukushima, which has seen …
Some areas near Japan’s crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant could be uninhabitable for many years, due to remaining high levels of radioactive contamination, the Japanese government has warned. The admission that work to stabilise the plant and decontaminate surrounding areas will not be sufficient to make local communities safe …
Broad areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could soon be declared uninhabitable, perhaps for decades, after a government survey found radioactive contamination that far exceeded safe levels, several major media outlets said Monday. The formal announcement, expected from the government in coming days, would be the first official …
Japanese inspectors found the first case of radioactive contamination in rice, the national grain, on Friday, adding it to the list of foods harmed by the accident at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Inspectors in Ibaraki Prefecture, just north of Tokyo, found radioactive cesium in a sample of rice …
A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 jolted north-eastern Japan off Fukushima prefecture on Friday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, although no damage was reported and a tsunami advisory for the area was lifted after no waves were sighted. Some highways were closed and high-speed bullet trains were …
Nearly half the children surveyed in three towns near the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant received low-grade internal exposure to radiation during the early days of the accident there, the government said Thursday, fueling concerns about long-term health effects on local residents. The government in late March tested 1,150 children …
While the Maharashtra government is considering guidelines to restrict mobile towers from coming up near hospitals and schools, doctors at Jerbai Wadia hospital in Parel have asked the administration to remove the mobile antenna set up in the hospital premises. The doctors are concerned about the radiation emitted by such …
Samples of rice grown in a town near Tokyo showed no radioactive materials when tested, officials said on Wednesday, a relief for farmers preparing to ship Japan's traditional food staple. Concerns over food safety have grown after radiation from the smashed Fukushima Daiichi power plant has leaked across northern and …
The day after a giant tsunami set off the continuing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, thousands of residents at the nearby town of Namie gathered to evacuate. Given no guidance from Tokyo, town officials led the residents north, believing that winter winds would be blowing south and carrying …
The Japanese government said Tuesday that it may lift an evacuation advisory for some areas near the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant as soon as next month, in what would be the first areas reopened since the nuclear accident in March. The easing has become possible because of success in …
Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Saturday took his campaign against nuclear energy in Japan to Hiroshima which 66 years ago became the world's first victim of an atomic bomb. It marks a change of tack in a country which has until now carefully avoided linking its fast growing, and now …
MUMBAI: An advocate has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the HC against the "mindless" use of hand-held and door metal detectors in places like railway stations, malls and courts. Cautioning against the health risk posed by radiations emitted by these metal detectors, Suryakant Lavte (27) has urged the …
Within days of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, Japanese food inspectors were spot-checking meat from the region's slaughtered cattle for radioactive contamination. Officials later fanned out to farms near the crippled plant to pass Geiger counters over the animals to determine whether they were safe to sell. …
