Sri Lanka Ports Authority [SLPA] along with the Sri Lanka Customs [SLC] and Atomic Energy Authority  [AEA] have taken immediate precautionary measures against possible radiation threats to the country due to the recent explosions at the Fukushima nuclear plants in Japan. 

Director of Security of SLPA, Major General Sanath Karunaratne informed sources that with the instructions of the Deputy Minister Hon.  Rohitha Abeygunawardhana and the advice of Dr. Priyath B Wickrama, Chairman & Capt. Nihal Keppetipola, Managing Director of SLPA,  all cargoes arriving from Japanese ports from and around the affected areas are subjected to radiation checks at the Port of Colombo.  He explained that,  in bound containers  and motor vehicles are driven through  the portals available under the Mega Ports Initiative jointly commissioned by the US Energy Department and the Ministry of Ports in 2006. 

Sri Lanka is the 1st country in the Indian Subcontinent to embark on establishing the Container Security Initiative [CSI] under which substances of explosive nature utilized for weapons of mass destruction and Mega Ports Initiative [MPI] where material of  radioactive are scanned jointly by the SLPA & SLC. 

Friday’s earthquake and tsunami caused power shortage across northern Japan, including at the Daiichi plant in the Fukushima prefecture which comprises six separate nuclear reactors.  That in turn caused a failure of the reactors’ cooling  systems, which are needed to keep the nuclear fuel from overheating and melting down and triggering an explosion, releasing poisonous radiation into the atmosphere.
(CPRD-21032011)