Panic gripped many people in Dhaka and elsewhere in Bangladesh after they received text messages yesterday warning of radiation following the nuclear reactor incidents in Japan.
Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission said those are rumours and people in Bangladesh have nothing to worry about Japan's nuclear reactor radiation leakage.
It said it is far away from Bangladesh.
"I know about the message. This is absolutely a rumour. People in Bangladesh do not need to worry about the radiation yet," said Farid Uddin, chairman of BAEC.
Citing BBC news service one of the two messages read. “Japan Government Confirms radiation leak at Fukushima Nuclear Plant. Asian countries should take necessary precaution. If rains come, stay indoor first 24 hrs, Close doors and windows, wrap your neck with a piece of cloth as radiation hits thyroid first. Take extra precaution;”
The Daily Star did not find any such news on the BBC website.
The BBC on its website later on said, “A fake text message warning people that radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant has leaked beyond Japan has been panicking people across Asia.
“The SMS message, purporting to come from the BBC, has been circulating around Asian countries since Monday.”
The BBC has issued no such flash but the hoax has caused particular panic in the Philippines, it said. Another text message sent to mobile phones, citing the British High Commission, had similar warnings.
"We have not disseminated any such message. We are looking for the original sender," Syeda Nazneen Ferdousi, senior press officer of the British High Commission in Dhaka, told The Daily Star.
According to Japanese television NHK, the fourth nuclear reactor exploded yesterday afternoon at Fukushima, a Japanese port city, 4,967km away (straight line distance) from Bangladesh. So far 400 millisievert nuclear radiation was leaking from one of its plants, enough to affect human health.
Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency has described the Fukushima incident as a level-4 event on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), which is used for an accident "with local consequences".
However, nuclear experts have voiced concerns that the incident could upgrade to Level-5, which is defined as “Accident with wider consequences”.
Shahana Afroz, a member at the bioscience department of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission, told The Daily Star that the commission is closely monitoring the radiation level in different parts of the country.
“So far things are normal and there is nothing to be worried about,” she said.
The wind direction in Japan would be an indicator of where the radiation may flow, she said.
According to Shahana, the BAEC has radiation testing facilities in Dhaka, Savar and Chittagong where radiation levels in the air is measured and recorded round the clock.
Around eight hours after the explosions in Japan, the UN weather agency said wind was blowing radioactive material over the Pacific Ocean, away from Japan and other Asian countries. The Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation added that weather conditions could change, Reuters reported.
Asian governments that are ramping up nuclear power will face huge pressure to curb their programmes in the wake of Japan's atomic crisis, but dozens of reactors will still be built in the near future.
Authorities in Bangladesh, which has signed a deal with Russia for two nuclear power plants, said they were monitoring events in Japan closely but they would pursue their plans.
"Our reactors will be third generation and they will be able to withstand even the most powerful earthquakes," Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission chairman Farid Uddin Ahmed told AFP.
A spokesperson for World Health Organisation, Bangladesh told The Daily Star that Bangladesh is not likely to be affected by the Japan nuclear incident but it is too early to comment.
Munir Hasan, a high school teacher from Badda, said, “At first I laughed it off as a rumour. But after hearing some of my colleagues discuss it, I could not help but panic.
“So I forwarded the SMS to my parents, younger brother and some friends just to be on the safer side.”
News Source: The Daily Star