Officials carry a blue box reportedly containing a drone from the rooftop of Shinzo Abe’s offices in Tokyo. Photograph: Thomas Peter/Reuters
Japanese authorities are trying to find out who flew a small, four-propeller drone that reportedly contained traces of radiation over the roof of the prime minister’s office.
The bizarre incident triggered concerns over quadcopters and other small UAVs, and their possible use for terrorist attacks.
From Mainichi:
The drone, measuring about 50 centimeters in diameter, was carrying a small camera and a 10-cm brown bottle of liquid that bore a sticker showing a radioactivity symbol and the word “radioactive,” the police said.
A staff member of the prime minister’s office found the drone on the roof that serves as a helipad around 10:20 a.m. Wednesday, according to the police.
The police detected in the vicinity of the drone radioactive cesium, which is rarely found in nature. The cesium measured up to 1.0 microsievert of gamma rays per hour, but a government source said the amount was not harmful to humans.
The Japanese government reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency that the amount of the radioactive material was tiny, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in Vienna.
Investigators examine a drone found on the roof of the prime minister’s office in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on April 22, 2015. (Mainichi)
From the Guardian:
The significance was not immediately clear, but a Japanese court on Wednesday approved the restart of a nuclear power station, rejecting nuclear power safety worries in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima radiation disaster.