The US Pentagon was expected to announce that US sailors on the USS Ronald Reagan, an aircraft carrier were exposed to radiation when the carrier sailed into a radioactive cloud off the coast of Japan, according to a
New York Times report.
US government officials told the
NY Times that sailors and other military personnel onboard were exposed to a month's worth of radiation in an hour's time. They added that US helicopters flying humanitarian missions some 60 miles north of damaged Japanese reactors were coated with particulate radiation. The aircraft were washed off.
RELATED:Blast strikes Japanese nuclear plant; core safe2,000 bodies found on tsunami-stricken Japanese coastDespite the scare, officials said there was no indication that any of
the military personnel experienced ill effects from the exposure,
comparing it to "natural background radiation" that all people are
exposed to daily.
A second hydrogen explosion rocked a stricken nuclear power plant in
Japan where authorities have been scrambling to avert a meltdown after
last week's devastating earthquake and tsunami.
The big fear is of a major radiation leak from the complex in Fukushima,
240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, where engineers have been battling
since the weekend to prevent a meltdown in three reactors.
The core container of the No. 3 reactor was intact after the explosion,
the government said, but it warned those still in the 20-kilometer
(13-mile) evacuation zone to stay indoors. The plant operator, Tokyo
Electric Power Co (TEPCO) , said 11 people had been injured in the
blast.
US warships and planes helping with relief efforts moved away from the
coast temporarily because of low-level radiation. The US Seventh Fleet
described the move as precautionary.