BEIJING: China has detected 10 cases of radioactive contamination among passengers, aircraft, ships and containers arriving from Japan since March 16, quarantine authorities said on Saturday.
On Wednesday, radiation exceeding permitted levels was detected on two ships from the Japanese port of Chiba, near Tokyo, in the ports of Nantong and Zhangjiagang, Li Yuanping, spokesman of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said on its website.
Similar radiation was measured on four vessels that arrived from Japan at various ports over the next two days.
Higher than normal radiation was also detected Friday on a flight from Tokyo to the eastern city of Hangzhou, the administration's website said.
Abnormally high radioactivity was first detected on a ship that arrived from Japan at the southeast port of Xiamen on March 22.
Two Japanese travellers were briefly hospitalised the next day with elevated radiation levels after arriving in eastern China on a commercial airliner from Tokyo. Their clothing and luggage was destroyed.
The ministry of environmental protection reported late Friday that very small quantities of iodine-131 and caesium 137 and 134 had been detected in the atmosphere of every Chinese province except Tibet.
The amounts were too small to represent a health hazard, the ministry said.
China last week banned the import of fruit, vegetables, dairy products and seafood from regions close to the site of the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, which has continued to release radioactivity into the environment since it was crippled in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan.
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