N.Z. FALLOUT CHECK

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29890, 2 August 1962, Page 15

N.Z. FALLOUT CHECK

Mr Roth Tours Islands The Director of the Domion X-Ray Laboratory (Mr G. E. Roth) has left Fiji by Royal New Zealand Air Force Sunderland flying-boat on a tour of the New Zealand radioactive fall-out monitoring stations in the Pacific Islands. Mr Roth will visit the chain of monitoring stations in the Cook and Samoan Island groups, connecting with an R.N.ZA.F. Hastings at Faleolo, Western Samoa, to visit Rarotonga and Penrhyn before returning to Whenuapai. Mr Roth is supervising the rearrangement of the monitoring programme after the conclusion of the test series of low-altitude atomic weapons by the United States from Christmas Island. It is expected that the present flight round the monitoring stations by the R.N.Z.A.F will be the last fortnightly one. The collection of food, precipitate and air samples was done specifically to monitor explosions from Christmas Island. No Change In Level The senior physicist at the Dominion X-Ray Laboratory (Mr J. F. McCahon) said yesterday that there had been no change in the levels of ground and sea radiation recently. The levels were still far below that which could by the remotest chance harm the health of people living in the islands. Mr McCahon said that, as expected, no change in radiation levels had occurred which could be attributed to the high-altitude explosion above Johnston Island. The bomb debris from this explosion would circle the earth for years before coming down, and any debris that did descend would be a much smaller percentage than that from a surface or nearsurface explosion. The high-altitude debris falling on to the earth would be so widespread and so mixed up with .all the debris from all other previous stratosphere explosions that it would not be possible to attribute it to the Johnston Island test, Mr McCahon said