IAEA: presence of radioisotopes in European air poses no threat to health, environment

A slight increase in the concentration of radioisotopes in the air above the Northern Europe poses no threat to people’s health and environment, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

According to the international organization, 33 countries informed the agency that no release of nuclear isotopes had taken place on their territory.

"The IAEA will continue its efforts to analyse collected information in order to identify the possible origin and location of the release," the agency said in a statement.

"The levels reported to the IAEA are very low and pose no risk to human health and the environment," IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi was quoted as saying in the statement. "I expect more Member States to provide relevant information and data to us, and we will continue to inform the public."

On Saturday, the IAEA requested European countries to provide information on whether elevated levels of radioisotopes were detected in their countries, and if any event there may have been associated with the atmospheric release. By Monday afternoon, 29 member states in the European region reported to the IAEA that there were no events on their territories that may have caused the observed air concentrations of Ru-103, Cs-134 and Cs-137, TASS reported.

The countries that reported to the IAEA are Albania, Austria, Belgium Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine and United Kingdom. In addition, some countries which have not been approached by the IAEA - Algeria, Georgia, Tajikistan and the United Arab Emirates - also reported voluntarily to the IAEA information about their measurements and that there were no events on their territories.