Radiation is still in agricultural products after 25 years

Radioactive dust from the explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 still exists in food in northern Ukraine, the Green Peace Organization confirmed yesterday.

The view of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant today.Photo: AP.

Greenpeace has just announced the results of agricultural investigations at many markets outside the cities of Zhytomyr and Rivne in northern Ukraine, AFP reported. Tests show that cesium 137 , radioactive material can accumulate in organisms for up to 30 years, exists in milk samples, dried mushrooms and berries with concentrations exceeding the permitted level.

The Green Peace report was published just before the 25th anniversary of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the town of Pripyat, Ukraine. The aim of Green Peace is to help the world see the gaps in food inspection in rural areas that have suffered from radioactive dust.

The analysis of food in Zhytomyr and Rivne regions has been conducted regularly, but it ended two years ago, said Iryna Labunska, the group's lead author. Labunska is currently an Exeter University scientist in southwestern England.

Cesium 137 radioactivity is found in berries in two northern Ukrainian cities.Photo: in.com.

' Cesium 137 is still a major threat to public health. The Ukrainian government was in a hurry to terminate the food inspection program, ' Labunska commented.

The Chernobyl atomic disaster , which occurred on April 26, 1986, is considered the most serious nuclear accident in history. Because the plant has no retaining walls, the cloud of nuclear dust spreads to many parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and the United Kingdom. Even radioactive dust flew to the eastern United States. The catastrophe produced 400 times more radioactive dust than the atomic bomb that the United States threw at the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945.

Western and southern Ukraine did not suffer radioactive dust from the Chernobyl disaster.