JAKARTA: Indonesian authorities found traces of radioactivity at a clove farm on Sumatra island, a government spokesman said Tuesday, as Jakarta expanded an investigation launched after the US health authority detected Caesium-137 contamination of spices from Indonesia.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently said it had detected the presence of Caesium-137 in a sample of cloves from PT Natural Java Spice during screening after the radioactive isotope was also detected in August in a sample of frozen shrimp from Indonesia.
The Indonesian government then launched an investigation, with inspection teams sent to a processing facility and a farm on Java island and another farm on Sumatra, task force spokesman Bara Hasibuan told AFP Tuesday.