Japanese authorities failed to disclose US data on the spread of radiation from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant last year, a cabinet minister says. This left some evacuees fleeing in the same direction as the radioactive emissions, media report.

­The March 11, 2011 tsunami and earthquake partially wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant north of Tokyo. 160,000 people fled the ensuing worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986.

US military aircraft gathered radiation data over a 45-km (28-mile) radius from March 17-19. The data showed that people in a radius of around 25 km – some moving towards the plant- received the annual permissible level of radiation in eight hours.