UN chief Ban Ki-moon Sunday arrived in Japan’s Fukushima, where he plans to visit the nuclear disaster zone, as the crippled atomic power plant simmers and a food safety scare deepens

UN chief Ban Ki-moon Sunday arrived in Japan's Fukushima, where he plans to visit the nuclear disaster zone, as the crippled atomic power plant simmers and a food safety scare deepens.
  
The secretary general became one of the most senior foreign leaders to go near the damaged plant after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11 triggered the catastrophe.
  
On Monday, Ban will meet some of the 85,000 people who have been evacuated to shelters from areas around the plant after what has become the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years ago. "I wanted to come to Japan as soon as possible after the tragedy of 11 March to express the solidarity and deep sympathy that the whole world feels for the people of your great country," Ban said last week.
  
The UN chief will also meet Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto later on the same day in Tokyo. Ban has convened a nuclear safety summit for the UN General Assembly in New York in September and is expected to reinforce his calls for tougher international standards while in Japan.
  
Ban plans to visit Haragama beach at Soma city, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which continues to leak radioactive material. A 20-kilometre exclusion zone around the battered facility prevents him going much nearer.
  
Five months on from the disaster, the Japanese government and operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) are struggling to stabilise three reactors that have melted down.