LOC21:41
18:41 GMT
WASHINGTON, March 17 (KUNA) -- A team of 11 technical experts continues to
work in Tokyo to provide assistance to the Japanese government and the
ambassador in Tokyo in the wake of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear
accident that struck Japan, Greg Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC), said on Thursday.
Based on an analysis by the NRC, "we recommended that citizens out to about
50 miles (from the damaged nuclear facility in Japan) should be evacuated,"
Jaczko said during a White House briefing. "We provided that recommendation to
the ambassador, and he issued a statement for American citizens to that
effect. And I want to stress that this is, we think, a prudent and a
precautionary measure to take".
US officials do not see any concern from radiation levels from Japan that
could be harmful in the United States or any of the US territories, he said.
US equipment sent to support Japan has arrived on a C-17, said Dan Poneman,
US deputy secretary of Energy, who also participated in the briefing. "We sent
a team of 33 additional people, which were added to the six people we already
had out there in Japan. They had over 17,000 pounds of equipment with them.
They have unpacked that".
"We are going to continue to work very closely with the Japanese and come
to do what we can to see a safe path through this in support of Japanese-led
efforts to come to terms with this very dangerous situation," Poneman said.
Jaczko said the situation at the damaged Japan nuclear complex was "very
difficult," and "there will be a lot of work continuing as we go forward to
deal with continuing to cool the reactors and to provide cooling to the spent
fuel pools". (end)
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