The government said Friday that it will impose a ban on imports of all fishery products from eight prefectures adjacent to the Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan hit by radioactive materials leaking from the stricken facility.
The measure came in a government-ruling party policy consultation meeting amid a widespread radiation scare in the country, which has causd a sharp decline in the consumption of fishery products.
The government had imposed an import ban on 50 kinds of fishery products from the prefectures - Ibaraki, Gunma, Miyagi, Iwate, Tochigi, Chiba, Aomori and Fukushima.
Last year, South Korea imported about 5,000 tons of fishery products from the eight prefectures, according to the Ministry of Ocean and Fisheries.
A 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsumani in March 2011 led to the catastrophic meltdown of a nuclear reactor at the Fukushima plant.
Earlier this week, Japan's watchdog chief Shunichi Tanaka warned that the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant "has not ended," adding that it might not be possible to avoid dumping some contaminated water into the ocean.
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com