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Japan taking right measures to protect people

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-03-15 17:44

GENEVA - Japan is taking the right measures to protect its population from radioactivity, including evacuations, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.

Japan has not asked the WHO to send experts in radiation contamination, but the UN agency's network of experts is on standby, spokesman Gregory Hartl said.

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"So far the Japanese have taken all the necessary measures, evacuation, sheltering and prepositioning stocks of potassium iodide," Hartl told Reuters in Geneva. "These seem to be the public health measures generally agreed upon for the level of exposure that exists at the moment."

Japan faced potential catastrophe on Tuesday after a quake-crippled nuclear power plant exploded and sent low levels of radiation floating towards Tokyo, prompting some people to flee the capital and others to stock up on essential supplies. 

Prime Minister Naoto Kan urged people within 30 km (18 miles) of the facility north of Tokyo to remain indoors and conserve power amid the world's most serious nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine in 1986.

"People who live more than 30 kms away are at much lower risk than those within that zone," Hartl said. "The risk then tails off fairly rapidly.

"We are keeping very close track of the situation, it could change from minute to minute," he said.

The WHO's network of experts known as REMPAN (Radiation Emergency Medical Preparedness and Assistance Network) was set up in 1987 and can be deployed in emergencies if a government requests assistance.

It links experts at collaborating centres specialising in diagnosis, monitoring, treatment and long-term follow-up of radiation injuries, acute radiation syndrome, internal contamination and other radio-pathology.