SEOUL--South Korea is banning all fishery product imports from eight Japanese prefectures, including Fukushima, due to concerns about radiation contamination from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
SEOUL--South Korea is banning all fishery product imports from eight Japanese prefectures, including Fukushima, due to concerns about radiation contamination from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. Currently, South Korea has banned 50 fishery products from those eight prefectures. It said it would also now tighten its testing on fishery imports from other areas of Japan. “The measures are due to the sharply increased concern in the public about the flow of hundreds of tons of contaminated water into the ocean at the site of the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan,” a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s office told a briefing on Aug. 6. The widened ban takes effect on Aug. 9 and would remain in place indefinitely, vice Fisheries Minister Son Jae-hak told the briefing, saying information received from Japan was not good enough to properly judge the situation. South Korea imported 5,000 tons of fishery products from the eight affected prefectures last year, out of a total of 40,000 tons of imports from Japan, Son said.