“Cows are like vacuum cleaners, picking up radioactive iodine that lands over a wide area of pasture, and then those particles very easily are concentrated and pass into the milk,” said the expert, who declined to be identified.

“This was what happened in Chernobyl, and unfortunately, information about the risk had not been supplied to parents.”

Asian countries like Thailand, South Korea and Singapore have begun checking Japanese food products for traces of radiation.

In Hong Kong, authorities began monitoring radiation levels from 10 air monitoring stations able to detect radioactive isotopes such as iodine 131 and caesium 137, characteristic of nuclear power station leaks.

Leung Wing-mo, assistant director of the Hong Kong Observatory, said the risk of radiation to Hong Kong was “very, very low” as wind and weather patterns would help disperse any radiation eastwards.

However, he warned that radiation could be concentrated in liquid or solid form, so people should avoid rain or snow in the affected areas if at all possible.

(Additional reporting by Mayumi Negishi in Japan and James Pomfret in Hong Kong, editing by Miral Fahmy)

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By Tan Ee Lyn
SINGAPORE