SEOUL--Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon ordered radiation checks on all roads after radioactive cesium-137 was detected in several spots of the capital.
SEOUL--Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon ordered radiation checks on all roads after radioactive cesium-137 was detected in several spots of the capital.
Park also outlined a plan to implement epidemiologic examinations on the impact of radiation on residents’ health in areas where high levels of cesium were found.
“I am seriously concerned about this as a mother of a child living in this area,” a resident said at a Nov. 7 briefing session
held by the city government. “I want the government to provide health checks over a long term.”
Similar requests were voiced from residents at the gathering.
Since Nov. 2, around 3 microsieverts per hour of cesium-137 has been detected on road surfaces in residential and shopping areas of Seoul's northeast ward of Nowon-gu. The ward government is removing asphalt believed to be the source of the contamination.
All contaminated roads were found to have been paved around 2000. The city government said it will check for radiation on all roads built in Seoul around that year. The checks will also extend to materials at all suppliers of asphalt used in the city’s public works projects.