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Japan says no plan to widen nuclear evacuation zone

 Japan said on Thursday there were no immediate plans to widen the exclusion zone around its stricken nuclear plant, hours after the UN atomic watchdog agency voiced its concern over the issue.

The UN atomic watchdog said Wednesday radiation in a village outside the evacuation zone around the plant was above safe levels, urging that Japan reassess the situation.

In its first such call, the International Atomic Energy Agency added its voice to that of Greenpeace in warning over radioactivity in Iitate village, where the government has already told residents not to drink tap water.

Japan's top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, confirmed that "the IAEA has informed us that the level of radiation in the soil exceeded one of the IAEA standards."

"And the IAEA has advised us to carefully assess the situation on the basis of this report," he told a regular press conference.

When asked by a reporter whether Japan would now expand the exclusion zone, he said: "I don't think that this is something of a nature which immediately requires such action."

Japan has struggled to contain its nuclear emergency since a 14-metre (45-foot) tsunami hit the Fukushima plant after a huge quake on March 11, with radioactive substances entering the air, sea and foodstuffs from the region.

Iitate village is 40 kilometres (25 miles) northwest of the crisis-hit plant - outside both the government-imposed 20 kilometre exclusion zone and the 30-kilometre "stay indoors" zone.

"The first assessment indicates that one of the IAEA operational criteria for evacuation is exceeded in Iitate village," the IAEA's head of nuclear safety and security, Denis Flory, told reporters in Vienna on Wednesday.

17:11 | |

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