WHO spokesman: Japan food safety situation "serious" 21 Mar 2011 The World Health Organisation said on Monday that the detection of radiation in food after an earthquake damaged a Japanese nuclear plant was a more serious problem than it had first expected. "Quite clearly it's a serious situation," Peter Cordingley, Manila-based spokesman for WHO's regional office for the Western Pacific, told Reuters in a telephone interview. "It's a lot more serious than anybody thought in the early days when we thought that this kind of problem can be limited to 20 to 30 kilometres," he said.