Radioactive incident in Russian city bordering China has no impact on Heilongjiang: Chinese authority

China's National Nuclear Safety Administration announced on Wednesday that radioactive sources in Khabarovsk in Russia's Far East near the border with China have not affected neighboring areas in our country. The 24-hour monitoring in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province has shown results within normal levels, and no abnormalities have been observed.

The topic of "radioactive sources found in the Russian city just about 60 kilometers from the border areas of Heilongjiang" has been trending in recent days on Chinese social media, and some netizens raised concerns about the potential impact on the livelihoods in the Chinese province. 

Authorities in Russia's far eastern city of Khabarovsk have declared a state of emergency in an area where a "radiation source" was found, Reuters reported on Friday, citing TASS news agency.

It said elevated radiation levels were detected near a power pylon about 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from residential buildings. No one had been injured or exposed to radiation and "there is no threat to the health of citizens," according to the media report. 

The department of ecology and environment of Heilongjiang is closely monitoring the situation, the Chinese administration said. In recent days, the atmospheric radiation environment automatic monitoring stations in the province have been continuously monitoring the gamma radiation dose rate and collecting aerosol samples 24 hours a day. And the monitoring results are within normal levels, and no abnormalities have been observed, it noted. 

In Heilongjiang, there are a total of 27 automatic monitoring stations for atmospheric radiation. Among them, in the Fuyuan and Tongjiang areas of Jiamusi city, there are two automatic monitoring stations which are closest to the Khabarovsk region, approximately 60 kilometers and 210 kilometers away, according to a post published by department of ecology and environment of Heilongjiang on Wednesday. 

On Tuesday, the mayor of Khabarovsk signed an order declaring the lifting of the local state of emergency, which was imposed due to the discovery of a source of radioactive contamination (a cesium-137 capsule on an industrial flaw detector, which has since been transferred to specialized regulatory authorities), the Chinese Consulate-General in Khabarovsk said in a post published on Tuesday. 

According to an announcement from a local emergency authority, the radiation levels in Khabarovsk city on Tuesday ranged between 0.09 and 0.13 microsieverts per hour, within normal standards (within 0.26 microsieverts per hour), the consulate-general said.

This incident did not have any adverse effects on residents' health or the surrounding environment. Currently, production and daily life in Khabarovsk city are back to normal, it noted. 

An unnamed expert from the Heilongjiang provincial institute of atomic energy was quoted in the post of the department of ecology and environment of Heilongjiang that if the detected radiation source is confirmed to be a "radiation source," and its stainless steel outer casing is intact with no damage, its contents are not dispersed or lost, and it does not contain other nuclear materials or substances, and Russia has safely placed the radiation source in a container and sent it to a temporary storage facility for radioactive waste, then the radiation levels at the site of the incident will return to normal levels, posing no ongoing radioactive impact on the local area and no harm to human health.

"A great deal of attention to this incident on Chinese social media mainly stems from the recent Moscow terrorist attack, which makes people nervous and worried about the potential use of 'dirty bombs'," Zhang Hong, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Anything happening in the neighboring regions between China and Russia would affect China, so we take it very seriously, the expert said, noting that previously there have been similar incidents such as pollution in the Songhua River, and China promptly notified Russia about it.

There used to be a mechanism for joint notification between China and Russia after similar events, including environmental disasters. However, this time, the response from Heilongjiang Province mainly came from our own side rather than through formal notification, and when Russia discovered it, they included it as part of their media reports, Zhang noted. 

"This indicates that there is still room for improvement in terms of environmental safety cooperation between China and Russia," he said.