Researchers from France’s Climate and Environmental Science laboratory (LSCE) and Tsukuba University in Japan have found that high winds and rain wash away soil contaminated following the earthquake and tsunami two years ago, David Kashi of the International Business Times explained.

 

That soil, which was tainted by cesium particles and other radioactive materials following the accident, becomes deposited in streams and rivers, the AFP news agency added. As a result, people living in communities that escaped the initial fallout in 2011 could now find their food and water contaminated by the cesium particles, LSCE researcher Olivier Evrard and his colleagues warned.

 

“The typhoons ‘strongly contribute’ to soil dispersal, said Evrard, though it can be months later, after the winter snow melts, that contamination actually passes into rivers,” AFP noted, adding that research has demonstrated that “soil erosion can move the radioactive varieties of cesium-134 and 137 from the northern mountains near Fukushima into rivers, and then out into the Pacific Ocean.”