Around 10 years ago, a group of houses were built with radiation contaminated steel bars. And even after so many years, there are still more than 900 radiation houses on the island.

The question now is whether it poses health risks to those residing inside. In response, the Atomic Energy Council is telling the people not to worry because the radiation level is too low to be harmful.

In 1996, these dozen housing units in Nankang of Taipei City were confirmed to have Co-60 contaminated steel bars.

The news got massive media coverage.

Residents say they really have no idea what to do.

According to the weekly, there are four kindergartens located right next to the radiation-affected houses.

The Atomic Energy Council says a batch of steel bars were contaminated by radiation and later sold to Northern Taiwan as building materials.

So far, there are 905 housing units affected by radiation.

The council has purchased 10 of them and left them idle, claiming that the amount of radiation that affects the other houses on the monitoring list is limited.

Despite the council's claim, a radiation expert Chang Wu-hsiu says that long-term exposures in houses of high radiation emission can cause certain cancers.

The scholar suggests that unless for medical purpose of taking X-ray or CT scan, it's best to keep one's radiation exposure to less than 1 millisievert per year for health reasons.

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