The shipments of beef cows suspected of having been fed with radioactive rice straw to all the prefectures except Okinawa have underlined the radiation hazards caused by the disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plants.
Another phenomenon that brings home hazards from the nuclear crisis is the existence of radioactive hot spots both near and far away from the nuclear power plants.
After detecting hot spots in four areas in Date, Fukushima Prefecture, the central government on June 30 designated 113 households there as special evacuation spots and announced that it will help residents if they choose to evacuate.