It’s reasonable to expect that where there is cesium, there is also strontium, however it takes much longer to run tests for strontium and there are very few labs equipped to run the tests.
- On the same day that the evacuation advisory zone was lifted, MEXT (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) finally released results of strontium testing carried out around the plant.
- Of the samples, collected since June, Futuba (inside the 20km zone) was the highest, at 5,700 Bq/m2 (note the change in unit from kg to square meters). Of particular concern were results from within the lifted evacuation advisory zone: Minami Soma (three locations: 600, 260, 160 bq/m2), Tamura (610 Bq/m2), Kawauchi (380、130、39 Bq/m2) and Hirono (220、150、120、76、61 Bq/m2).
- Plutonium also detected for the first time outside the plant, however official attitude is to ignore the results, as ‘compared to cesium the quantities are minuscule, therefore the focus will remain on cesium’.