Japan should not be seen as new Chernobyl
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Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere on Monday warned against drawing a nuclear horror scenario about what is happening in Japan after nuclear power stations were damaged in the strong earthquake, saying that Japan should not be taken as a new Chernobyl.
Speaking at an annual meeting of the Akershus county Labor Party, Stoere said that the images coming in from Japan were appalling, and that the damage was very serious for Japan. But he said that he believed Japan and the rest of the world did not face another Chernobyl this time.
Uncertainty surrounding the destroyed nuclear power stations in the earthquake-hit areas of Japan makes it different from the tsunami devastation on the Christmas day in 2004, he added.
The Norwegian minister added that Norway would send humanitarian aid and search teams with dogs to Japan as requested by Japan.
The Foreign Ministry has a nearly complete record of Norwegians in the earthquake-stricken areas and so far no Norwegians have been reported dead or injured, Stoere said.
"Japan is hit by a disaster. But the country is well prepared to cope with considerable stress," said the minister.
Sending a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over large parts of Europe, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, is considered as the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.
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