Samoan Fall-Out Heavy

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31196, 21 October 1966, Page 3

Samoan Fall-Out Heavy

Debris from the French nuclear tests in the Pacific reached Western Samoa a few days after the third bomb was exploded on September 12. In rainwater collected at Apia the radioactivity (total beta activity) was between

four and five times the permissible level for continuous consumption during the week September 13-20, said the director of the National Radiation Laboratory in Christchurch (Mr G. E. Roth) yesterday. Averaged over a year the radioactivity would be about one-tenth of the permissible level for continuous consumption, he said. Analyses of samples taken! throughout the South Pacific! and New Zealand had shown! that the activity in Samoa was the heaviest recorded during the series. It occurred only a few days after the explosion of the third bomb. The highest average radioactivity in the air during the series was recorded at Nandi between September 1 and 22. The level was less than 2 per cent of the permissible level for continuous breathing by the entire population of Fiji. The highest level of iodine 131 in New Zealand milk was found at New Plymouth on July 25. If maintained over the entire year, this level would be less than 15 per cent of the acceptable level for any age

group, he said. However, this level was maintained for only a few days. Details of the analyses were included in a special summary of results of extended monitoring of fall-out from the French tests processed between July 1 and September 28. They were issued in conjunction with the quarterly report on radioactivity in New Zealand between last April and June. The report says that the fall-out levels in air and rainwater during the quarter were about one-half those during the first quarter of 1966. The Strontium 90 levels in

rainwater were about one-fifth of the highest levels previously measured during the first quarter of 1965 for deposition and during the fourth quarter of 1964 for specific activity. The strontium 90 level in milk between March and June decreased slightly to about 90 per cent of the level during January and February. Caesium 137 levels in milk also showed a decrease over the same period and this trend continued during July. The levels of strontium 90 and caesium 137 in milk during May-June were about half of the highest levels previously measured.