Millions at nuclear radiation risk in North Korea and neighbouring countries, suggests latest US-backed study

Millions of citizens in North Korea, South Korea, Japan and China live at the risk of being exposed to radioactive material spread through groundwater from a Pyongyang-operated underground nuclear test site, a Seoul-based human rights group said in a report on Tuesday.The study by Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group said radioactive materials could have spread across eight cities and counties near the site, housing over onemillion North Koreans.It also said that neighbouring South Korea, China and Japan might be at risk due partly to agricultural and fisheries products smuggled from the North.

Between 2006 and 2017, North Korea secretly conducted six tests of nuclear weapons at the Punggye-ri site, about 50 km north of the capital Pyongyang,in the mountainous North Hamgyong Province, according to the US and South Korean governments.

North Korean nuclear spillage: How bad is it?

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The Transitional Justice Working Group reportedlyworked with nuclear and medical experts and defectors and used open-source intelligence and publicly available government and UNreports for the study. The studywas backed by the National Endowment for Democracy, a non-profit corporation funded by the US Congress.

"This report is significant in showing that North Korea's nuclear tests could threaten the right to life and health of not only the North Korean people but also of those in South Korea and other neighbouring countries," Hubert Young-hwan Lee, the group's chief and a co-author was quoted as saying by Reuters.

North Korean nuclear spillage: Previous evidence of radioactive spread in spotlight

In 2015, South Korea's food safety agency detected nine times the standard level of radioactive caesium isotopes in imported hedgehog mushrooms. These mushrooms were being sold as Chinese produce though their actual origin was North Korea. Tokyo and Beijing have sped up radiation monitoring after Pyongyang's nuclear tests. Between2017 and 2018, South Korea tested 40 defectors from the regions near the North Korean nuclear test site, of which at least nine showed abnormalities linked with exposure to nuclear radiation.

Reports say that in 2018 when North Korea invited foreign press to witness the destruction of some tunnels atPunggye-ri nuclear test site, it confiscated the radiation detectors. North Korea has rejected the concerns about radioactive spillage.

The rights group has urged a resumption of testing and an international enquiry into the radiation risks for communities around Punggye-ri. Seoul and Washington have said Pyongyang could be preparing for a seventh nuclear test.

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Meanwhile, the tensions in the Korean peninsula escalated afterNorthKoreafirst fired a ballistic missile toward the sea off its east coast on Saturday (February 18), according to SouthKorea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, before conducting two more similar launches on Monday. Japan has sought an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council over the matter.

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