The soil surrounding the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains contaminated with radioactive cesium, with a high risk that those atoms could transfer to food crops, suggests a study conducted by researchers from Kyoto Prefectural University and published in the Journal of Environmental Quality . The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan triggered multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, causing the plant to eject a radioactive plume into the atmosphere that spread across Japan's countryside and the northern hemisphere.