New Delhi: India yesterday started checking travellers and goods from Japan for possible radioactive contamination as the nuclear crisis in the East Asian country escalated following last week’s devastating earthquake and tsunami, sources said.
National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) sources said that checkpoints had been established at the Delhi and Mumbai airports for checking incoming travellers and their luggage from Japan.
The checks are being carried out by the Nuclear Disaster Core Group, which is part of the NDMA. It is headed by retired major general J K Bansal.
“The group is co-ordinating with the DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) and BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre). Teams have been sent to the Delhi and Mumbai airports to check the passengers coming in from Japan,” an NDMA official said.
The teams are equipped with radioactive material detection systems and are setting up checkpoints at the airports. “This is being done in light of a potential widespread radiation release in Japan from the Fukushima Daichi nuclear plant,” the official said.
The sources said that radiation detective equipment would be integrated with X-ray baggage machines at the airports.
He, however, said there was no need to panic as it was “an exercise in precaution as was done when the Chernobyl (nuclear disaster in Ukraine) happened in 1986.”
16/03/11 IANS/Gulf Times
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