The external radiation exposure levels of high school students in Fukushima Prefecture are within the same range of those living in France, Poland and Belarus, a scientist and a high school student said Monday in Tokyo.

Both were among members of a research group that conducted a study on individual radiation levels.

Speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, Ryugo Hayano, a professor in the University of Tokyo's physics department, said that while the effect of the 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant definitely remains, radiation levels have fortunately lowered over the past five years.