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From the Sydney Morning Herald:

UN atomic watchdog raises alarm over Japan evacuations

By Shingo Ito

The UN atomic watchdog said Wednesday radiation in a village outside the evacuation zone around a stricken Japanese nuclear plant was above safe levels, urging that Japan reassess the situation.

In its first such call, the International Atomic Energy Agency added its voice to that of Greenpeace in warning over radioactivity in Iitate village, where the government has already told residents not to drink tap water.

Japan has struggled to contain its nuclear emergency since a 14-metre (45-foot) tsunami hit the Fukushima plant after a huge quake on March 11, with radioactive substances entering the air, sea and foodstuffs from the region.
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Iitate village is 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of the crisis-hit plant — outside both the government-imposed 20 kilometre exclusion zone and the 30-kilometre “stay indoors” zone.

“The first assessment indicates that one of the IAEA operational criteria for evacuation is exceeded in Iitate village,” the IAEA’s head of nuclear safety and security, Denis Flory, told reporters in Vienna on Wednesday.

The watchdog advised Japanese authorities to “carefully assess the situation and they have indicated that it is already under assessment,” Flory said.

But he added the IAEA, which does not have the mandate to order national authorities to act, was not calling for a general widening of the exclusion zone. . . .   (more)

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/un-atomic-watchdog-raises-alarm-over-japan-evacuations-20110330-1cgc7.html