Finns Report High Radiation; Cause Not Clear

Authorities here said Tuesday that a Finnish monitoring station near the Soviet Union recorded a mysterious, 10-second peak of atmospheric radiation at a level higher than those recorded in Finland right after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Esko Koskinen, an Interior Ministry safety official, told a news conference that Finland has not determined where the radiation burst Monday night came from or what caused it. He said there were abnormally high readings long after the peak--for up to six hours.

“We do not yet have information on the source of the sudden peak,” the official said. “The cause can be either a nuclear test, a leak in a nuclear power plant or a fault in the meter.”

Swedish television reported speculation Tuesday night that the radiation could have come from a sudden but controlled emission from the Ignalina nuclear power complex in the Soviet Baltic republic of Lithuania, south of Finland.

Instruments at Kotka, on Finland’s Baltic coast, measured atmospheric radiation levels Monday night of up to 1.8 milliroentgens an hour, Finnish officials said--four times higher than reported here after the April 26 Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in the Soviet Union.

The Finnish officials noted that the reading would have had to be more than 10 times higher before public safety precautions were necessary. Koskinen said radiation measurements had fallen back to 0.03 milliroentgen an hour--nearly normal--by Tuesday afternoon.

Swedish monitoring stations showed no unusual increases, officials there said.