Another day, another jolt and more contamination fears which led to what you could call a “water effect” on Japan’s stock markets, after the Tokyo metropolitan government fanned resident’s fears by warning that the city’s tap water may be unsafe for infants …
This from Bloomberg on Wednesday:
Tokyo authorities said city tap water may be unsafe for infants while Japan’s government sought to assure people that radiation levels detected in the food chain following a nuclear accident don’t pose a health threat.
Radioactive iodine levels taken yesterday at a treatment facility in the city’s Katsushika ward were double the recommended limit for infants, a city official said in a televised briefing. The water would pose a health risk if drunk over the long-term such as a year, he said. Japanese stocks extended declines, with the Nikkei 225 Stock Average falling 1.7 percent to close at 9,449.47 in Tokyo.
Japan’s health ministry earlier today advised against eating leafy vegetables, broccoli and cauliflower produced near the stricken Dai-Ichi power plant, which was damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The amount of contamination detected so far isn’t harmful, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a Tokyo briefing.
Shoppers in the basement of the Marunouchi Building next to Tokyo station crowded around big-screen televisions to listen to news on the water advisory. One woman in the Meidi-ya supermarket filled a basket with bottled water.
Levels of iodine-131 in Tokyo’s tap water jumped to 210 Becquerels per kilogram yesterday morning, the city official said. The recommended limit is 300 for adults and 100 for infants.
Not only that. The city’s governor, Shintaro Ishihara, then managed to trigger panic-buying of bottled water at a Tokyo news conference. After saying that radiation levels posed no immediate health risk and water could still be used, he added what sounded like an off-the-cuff warning, saying: “But for infants under age one, I would like them to refrain from using tap water to dilute baby formula”.
‘Within a couple of hours, bottled water had sold out from many inner city supermarkets, many of which had just managed to restock supplies after a big run following the March 11 eaerthquake and tsunami.
The water warning came as various countries including the US moved to ban fresh produce from the four regions surrounding the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, 240km northeast of Tokyo, where workers are still struggling to get pumps going to cool nuclear fuel rods and contain further contamination.
But for many nervous expats in Tokyo, many of who fled temporarily, the water scare could well be the last straw. Only on Monday came new signs of some semblance of normality returning to life in Tokyo — bar the extreme power conservation measures, ongoing earth tremors from aftershocks, and shortages of basic supplies such as milk and toilet paper.
Japanese, too, who have largely remained calm throughout, with relatively few leaving the capital, are now feeling anxious — as evidenced by the long queues for bottled water on Wednesday afternoon. “How are we supposed to cook?”, asked one woman standing in a queue at a local supermarket.
Indeed, the effect of the latest warning is likely to hit Tokyo’s hitherto thriving restaurant industry — already grappling with a plunge in business, supply disruptions and the food contamination scare — hard.
Meanwhile, for many expats, “it might be time to get back on that plane or train and head west…”, as one American executive who had just returned to Tokyo after relocating for 9 days to the western city of Osaka remarked.
The shelves might be cleared of water and toilet paper but at least, in this local inner-city supermarket in Tokyo, there was always the prospect of gorging on Tim-Tams:
In a Tokyo supermarket
Related links:
Japan – the nuclear backlash – FT Alphaville
Japan quake: updated and in-depth – FT.com
WHO says Japan food contamination serious - FT
Japan – to buy or not to buy? – FT Alphaville