DPA TOKYO SMALL amounts of radioactive substances have been found in the breast milk of seven women in a survey involving 23 women in five Japanese prefectures, including Tokyo and Fukushima, according to news reports on Saturday.

The amount was below the provisional limit for milk and dairy products under the Food Sanitation Law and poses no health risks to babies, Kyodo News agency reported, citing Japan’s Health Ministry.

Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was damaged by a magnitude- 9 earthquake and tsunami on March 11 and has leaked radiation into the air and sea ever since.Several kinds of vegetables, fish and raw milk from areas near the plant have been already banned due to high levels of radiation detected in samples.

Meanwhile, two workers at the plant were found to be close to the nation's radiation exposure limit, TEPCO said Saturday.

The two were hospitalised in late March after they were exposed to radiation in the basement of a reactor building flooded with contaminated water.

They were diagnosed as having sustained betray radiation burn injuries to their legs.

High levels of radiation at the plant have prevented workers from restoring key cooling functions.

TEPCO published the results of its radiation tests on 21 plant workers whose cumulative exposure doses had exceeded 100 millisieverts as of the end of March.

Of the 21 workers, two exceeded the line of 200 millisieverts, with radiation in one case coming dangerously close to the newly-set legal limit of 250 millisieverts.

Eight others posted levels of between 150 and 200 millisieverts, while a further 11 recorded levels ranging from 100 to 150millisieverts, the operator said.

Workers whose total exposure exceeded 150 millisieverts are transferred out of the plant.

Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has defended his cabinet’s handling of the crisis after the government was criticised by a radiological safety expert who serves as special adviser to Kan’s cabinet.

The expert, Toshiso Kosako, resigned on Friday.

Kosako had criticised the government’s handling of the nuclear crisis, saying it was inappropriate and appeared to be causing a delay in efforts to resolve the crisis.

A professor at the University of Tokyo, Kosako had been named special adviser to the cabinet in mid-March, soon after the crisis started.

Kan, who has also expressed doubts about TEPCO and the country’s Nuclear Safety Commission over their responses to the crisis, had appointed Kosako and five other experts as special advisers to the cabinet.

Kosako had also criticised the Nuclear Safety Commission’s failure to swiftly disclose the results of estimates on the spread of radioactive substances made by the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information.