Associated Press
Emergency crews worked Friday to secure 15 sources of radiation buried in the rubble of China's devastating earthquake, the government said as it evacuated thousands of survivors downstream from rivers dammed by landslides.
(See photos of the quake's devastation.)
Officials precariously balanced their efforts to clean up and rebuild with attempts to house, feed, and treat the displaced and injured and search for survivors.
One senior official said China faces "a daunting challenge" to prevent environmental contamination from other sources.
There has been no leak of radioactive substances into the environment, Wu Xiaoqing, China's vice minister for environmental protection, told reporters in Beijing.
He said 50 sources of radiation were buried by debris from the massive earthquake in central China, 35 of which had been secured. The rest lay buried or located but unreachable under collapsed buildings. He gave no specifics about the radiation sources.
The number of unsecured sources was far higher than the two the government reported earlier this week. Foreign experts say the radioactive sources likely came from materials used in hospitals or factories or for research, not for weapons.
U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters that Washington was not aware of any threat to humans, "but, obviously, it is a concern."
He added that many of the locations were remote and that the U.S. was relying for much of its information on the Chinese government.
"Hidden" Pollution
Wu cautioned that a number of other "hidden" sources of pollution are likely to be encountered as workers begin digging into the rubble, which includes numerous factories and refineries.
The worst-hit areas in Sichuan province include many high-risk petrochemical and chemical companies, he said. Around three-fourths of the more than a hundred chemical plants in the quake-hit area were forced to stop production as a result of damage, he said.
