Journals Proceedings

Abstract

The Tokyo Electric Power Company's, Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima-Ken (Fukushima Prefecture), Japan, was destroyed in March 2011 by a massive magnitude 9 earthquake (centred offshore to the northeast of Honshu Island) and by the subsequent historic tsunami of March 11, 2011. Because of the nuclear meltdown, hydrogen-explosion damage to the buildings that housed the reactors, and the contamination of the cooling water from the reactor cores, large quantities of radioisotopes were emitted into the atmosphere and adjacent seawater. Fishing is currently restricted off the coast of Fukushima-Ken because intermittent surveys have found part of the fishery products still contain high levels of radioisotopes. The Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology has measured radioisotope levels in fishery species off Iwaki-Shi(Iwaki City), Fukushima-Ken(located south of the former nuclear power plant); these data could be used to understand the relationship between the accumulation of specific nuclides (radioisotopes) and certain species of fish.