Japan Today | Nov. 1, 2011
A Japanese lawmaker on Monday drank a glass of decontaminated water taken from a radioactive puddle inside a reactor building at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in a bid to prove decontamination efforts are working.
Television footage showed a visibly nervous Yasuhiro Sonoda gulping down water that he said had been decontaminated after being scooped up from inside the plant.
“Just drinking decontaminated water doesn’t mean safety has been confirmed, I know that,” Sonoda told reporters. “Presenting data to the public is the best way.”
Sonoda, parliamentary secretary for the cabinet office, said that he drank the water after journalists repeatedly asked him to “prove” the area around the plant was safe.
The water came from puddles that had collected in the plant following clean-up efforts, a source not normally intended for human consumption. It was treated to reduce the iodine, cesium 131, 134 and 137 to within safe levels.
When asked by a reporter if the gesture was not simply a “political stunt,” Sonoda said, “It was not a performance. I’m simply trying to show that treated water is okay to drink.”
Sonoda also presented photos showing where the water came from.
Radioactive contaminants spewed into the environment from the Fukushima facility following reactor meltdowns and explosions triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami of March 11.
More than seven months after the disaster, tens of thousands of people remain evacuated from their homes and businesses in a 20-kilometer no-go zone around the plant and in pockets beyond that.
Fully decontaminating those areas is expected to take decades.