Egypt will immediately withdraw the shipping licenses of maritime agents who import radioactive cargo, the Red Sea Port Authority said on Sunday.
The authority's head, Abdel Qader Gab Allah, said the move come as part of new measures to stop radioactive containers entering seaports of Suez, the Red Sea, and South Sinai.
For the second time in less than one month, Egyptian authorities on Sunday discovered radioactive shipments from Japan at Ain Sokhna seaport in Suez.
Gab Allah told reporters that legal procedures have been taken against the agents who imported four radioactive containers from Japan, and they have now received warnings.
He added that two containers will leave Egyptian ports on Sunday to return to Japan, and that the other two were returned last week.
Last month, three other shipments were detected with equipment containing radioactivity greater than the permitted limit.
Several countries have imposed a ban on imports from Japan, fearing the effects of a series of failures at its Fukushima nuclear reactor, which resulted from a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that hit the country in March.
Egypt’s ministries of agriculture and health adopted similar measures earlier this year.
Translated from the Arabic Edition
