NO TRACE OF NEW FALLOUT

Press, Volume C, Issue 29674, 18 November 1961, Page 3

NO TRACE OF NEW FALLOUT

“May Never Get Here”

No trace of falj-out from the latest Russian series of nuclear bombs has yet been detected either by the Institute of Nuclear Sciences at Lower Hutt or by the Dominion X-Ray and Radium Laboratory in Christchurch. The latest rainfall sample tested at the institute tell at the end of October, Mr R. N. Woodward, an officer of the institute, said in a telephone interview from Wellington yesterday. Samples from the first fortnight of November, and from showers which had occurred over the last day or two, were now being examined and result* from the first of these should be available next week The absence of any measurable increase in radioactivity in the sample* bore out what bad been suspected from previous results—that fallout from Arctic tests might take months and months to get to New Zealand or might never arrive at all in measurable quantities. said Mr Woodward. Mr H. J. Yeabsley, acting director of the X-ray Laboratory, said that as it had been such a long time since appreciable rain fell in Christchurch there could be no recent results from rainfall measurement*. There ws* continuous monitoring of any radioactive dust which might be in the air, however, and this had shown no measurable rise. The dust filtering system was emptied three times a week and tested within a few days, Monday’s sample being the latest on which tests were complete. The first quarterly report of the laboratory on radioactive fallout would be issued next week. *