IAEA to collect samples from coastal waters near Fukushima nuclear power plant

Vienna [Austria], November 5 (ANI/Sputnik): An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team of experts will visit Japan from November 9-12 to collect samples from the coastal waters near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, according to a statement published on the agency's website on Friday.
"IAEA experts will visit Japan next week to collect samples of seawater, marine sediment and fishery products from coastal waters in Fukushima Prefecture. The goal is to support the quality assurance of radioactivity data collection and analysis by Japanese laboratories involved in a project initiated in 2014," the statement said.
The mission team will include two specialists from the IAEA Environment Laboratories in Monaco and three experts from the Analytical Laboratories for the Measurement of Environmental Radioactivity.
In addition to taking samples from the coastal waters, the experts also plan to examine fish from the markets in Fukushima Prefecture.
The mission will become the 11th IAEA visit to the prefecture to collect marine samples for radioactivity analyses. It will be carried out under recommendations on decommissioning of the plant and marine monitoring, made by the IAEA International Peer Review Mission in 2013.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility experienced core meltdowns as a result of the earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. The 2011 accident was the worst at a nuclear power plant since the Chernobyl accident a quarter of a century earlier. (ANI/Sputnik)