A farmer from Kampung Waekolong, Ranakolong village, Kota Komba district, East Manggarai, picks cloves on Sept 9 at his plantation in Nggoro Nggobo. - Photo: The Jakarta Post/ANN
JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities have confirmed the presence of Cesium-137 contamination at a clove plantation in Lampung, following a United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alert regarding radioactive substances detected in Indonesian clove exports.
Cs-137 is a man-made radioactive isotope generated through nuclear reactions. High levels of exposure to Cs-137 can cause severe burns, acute radiation sickness and increased cancer risk, and may even be fatal.
The Office of Coordinating Food Minister special staffer Bara Khrisna Hasibuan stated that officials are still working to trace the source of the radioactive contamination at the plantation.
"We are working to locate the source and contain the contamination to prevent further spread," Hasibuan said on Monday (Oct 13), as quoted by Kompas.com.
"We have also ordered that spices suspected to be contaminated with Cesium-137 are not to be sold to the public, at least until further laboratory test results are available," he added.
Bara also urged the public and businesses to remain calm, emphasizing that the radioactive contamination found at the Lampung plantation appears to be very limited in scope.
"The government will provide timely and transparent updates to the public as the investigation continues," he said. Bara said the investigation into the clove plantations began after the FDA reported traces of Cesium-137 in a sample of cloves exported last month by Surabaya-based company PT Natural Java Spice.
Following the alert, authorities inspected the company’s processing facility but found no signs of radioactive contamination. The investigation then shifted to two plantations that had supplied cloves to the company: one in Central Java and another in Lampung.
While the Central Java plantation was cleared, tests conducted at the Lampung site detected traces of Cesium-137.
The exact levels of contamination have not yet been made public. The FDA has returned the contaminated cloves to Indonesia, with the shipment expected to arrive later this month.
In response to the incident, the US agency has also issued a "yellow warning" on all clove exports originating from Java Island and Lampung. Under this measure, exporters are now required to submit a government-issued certificate confirming that their products are free from radioactive contamination before they can be shipped to the US.
The discovery of radioactive contamination in Indonesian cloves came shortly after the US FDA also flagged a shipment of shrimp from Indonesia for containing Cesium-137.
A subsequent investigation by the government uncovered widespread radioactive contamination at an industrial complex in Cikande, Banten, where the shrimp exporter is based.
The source of the contamination was traced to a scrap metal melting facility within the complex, which had been using imported scrap metal contaminated with Cesium-137 as raw material.
The government is currently working to decontaminate the area and has launched health screenings for approximately 200,000 workers and residents living in and around the industrial zone.
The head of the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM), Taruna Ikrar, said the agency is in continuous communication with the FDA regarding the recent radioactive contamination cases involving Indonesian export products.
"We want to assure the FDA that we are taking these incidents very seriously," Taruna said on Tuesday, as quoted by Antaranews.
"All contaminated products will be destroyed, and thorough decontamination efforts will be undertaken.
Through these measures, we hope to have Indonesian products removed from the FDA’s red and yellow lists." - The Jakarta Post/ANN
