Increased levels of radiation have been discovered a stadium in Fukushima Prefecture, according to the newspaper.
The measurements were first carried out by activists of the environmental organisation Greenpeace, and were then confirmed by government experts.
In some areas around the J-Village stadium, where the relay is supposed to start, the level of radioactivity significantly exceeds 0.23 microsieverts per hour, which is defined as safe for the area. In one of the tested sections of ground the background radiation was 71 microsieverts per hour and 1.7 microsieverts per hour at a distance of one meter from the ground.
Following the reports, Tokyo Electric Power specialists completely cut off and removed the contaminated land.
The Japanese government, according to Sankei, has taken the reports very seriously and intends to conduct new emergency measurements in the area of the stadium, which until recently was the main base of specialists working at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant.
The Olympic torch relay will start on 26 March 2020. It will travel through all of Japan's 47 prefectures to arrive at the National Stadium in Tokyo for the opening ceremony on 24 July.
The relay begins in Fukushima Prefecture, a region heavily impacted by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. A 9.0 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck the plant in March 2011, causing three nuclear reactors to meltdown and radioactive materials to be leaked into the atmosphere.
