INSPECTIONS OF rice, Japan’s daily staple, have for the first time detected potentially harmful radioactive contamination from the fallout of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Japan’s government has ordered Fukushima’s prefectural authorities to suspend shipments from the area where the sample was found, about 60km (37 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, according to state broadcaster NHK.
Local authorities have said that samples taken from a farm in Onami on the outskirts of Fukushima city showed concentrations of radioactive caesium at 630 becquerels per kilogram of rice, 130 becquerels above government safety limits.
Prefectural governor Yuhei Sato had previously declared last month that radiation levels in rice harvested from the area, one of Japan’s food breadbaskets, were “within safety limits”.
Japan’s authorities are struggling to track the course of radiation from the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl after a series of explosions sprayed caesium and other contaminants over thousands of kilometres of land and sea. The radioactivity was subsequently carried over large tracks of the northeast by rain and wind.
The government said this week that most of the leaked caesium, the most common pollutant which has a half-life of about 30 years and can cause cancer when it gets into soft tissues, has settled in 2km of top soil and can be scraped off.
Japan’s environment ministry recently estimated that decontamination work from the accident could extend to a 2,400sq km zone across the four worst affected prefectures.
The latest find, which follows previous contamination scares in tea, beef and fish, will add to fears among consumers that government checks are insufficient. The government’s top spokesman Osamu Fujimura insisted yesterday that the rice had not gone to market and urged consumers not to overreact.
“I have heard that the Onami case is special and does not affect a wide area,” he said. “We must act to prevent misinformation being disseminated and not spread groundless rumours.”
Last month Tokyo’s government began randomly checking radiation in eggs, fruit, fish and other fresh products in city stores after newspaper stories alleged that distributors were hiding or mixing contaminated food.
“It’s so hard to know what to trust,” said housewife Michiko Kiwamura, who was shopping last night in a Tokyo supermarket. “I always look now at where food is produced and try to avoid anything from around Fukushima.”
Government inspectors began testing rice fields across the northeast in April, a month after the crisis began, banning the production of rice in fields with over 5,000 becquerels of caesium per kilogram of soil.
Mr Fujimura said the latest ban on shipments could be short-lived. “If we confirm the safety of the grain in the region, we may consider lifting a ban on shipments.”