The government on Tuesday ordered a ban on the shipment of rice harvested in two more districts in Fukushima Prefecture after tests detected dangerously high levels of radioactive cesium.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said the central government has instructed Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato to impose the ban on rice harvested this year in the Oguni district and the Tsukidate district, both in the city of Date.

On Monday, the Fukushima Prefectural Government announced that a combined 3,400 kg of unmilled rice harvested by two farms in the Oguni district and by one farm in the Tsukidate district contained between 580 and 1,050 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium. The government's limit is 500 becquerels.

One of the farms in the Oguni district already has sold 9 kg of the tainted rice, the prefectural government said, adding it has yet to establish the identity of the buyer. The remainder of the Oguni rice has not reached the market, it said.

None of the rice harvested by the farm in Tsukidate has been distributed, and all 1,500 kg are currently being stored by the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives.

It is the second ban on rice grown in Fukushima Prefecture in the last two weeks. On Nov. 17, the government banned rice in the Onami district of the city of Fukushima after high levels of cesium were detected.

The prefectural government also decided Tuesday to inspect rice from about 2,300 farms in certain districts of Nihonmatsu and Motomiya where high radiation levels have been recorded.

Date is located next to the city of Fukushima, and parts of it have been designated as radiation hot spots where the annual exposure could exceed the maximum 20-millisievert limit.

"While we carried out the best inspection process we could think of, we must take the fact (that contaminated rice has been found) seriously," agriculture minister Michihiko Kano, hinting it may be necessary to devise new processes for inspecting rice.

The government will do its best to identify the buyer of the contaminated Oguni rice, he said.

The tainted rice was detected in new tests the Fukushima Prefectural Government started conducting on rice harvested by about 1,500 farms in the cities of Fukushima and Date after the central government banned rice from the Onami district.

TOKYO — The neediest victims of Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami have yet to receive much of the record $2.2 billion aid two months later, mainly because the authorities have yet to identify them, the country's Red Cross said Wednesday.

The March 11 quake and tsunami and nuclear crisis that followed at the Fukushima Daiichi plant left nearly 25,000 dead or missing, sent more than 117,000 people away from their homes and destroyed infrastructure in the north of Japan.

The Japanese Red Cross Society has so far collected 174 billion yen ($2.2 billion) in relief money, the most it has ever been given for any relief campaign.

The charity distributed about 65 billion yen in April to regional governments in the disaster-hit area, but says that this fund has yet to reach those most in need.

"The biggest problem is that those who should be receiving the money cannot be identified, as more than 10,000 people are still missing, resident registrations are gone and the administrative functions at the periphery are not working," said Tadateru Konoe, president of the Japanese Red Cross.

"The money has reached the prefectural level, but I recently saw a report that much of the actual distribution (to quake victims) has yet to take place," he told a news conference.

All of the organization's relief money is meant to be handed to victims, in cash, and the group has been criticized for the delay in distribution. In 1995, when a huge quake struck Kobe in western Japan, the initial round of cash handouts was made within about two weeks of the disaster.

The Japanese Red Cross still has more than 100 billion yen in relief money, and Konoe, also president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said there was no clear plan yet on how to distribute this. He said the money could also be given to businesses as well as individuals.

Japan has started to clean up and rebuild the damaged region but the job is daunting and the area is still a ruin.

A no-entry zone is still in place 20 km (12 mile) around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant, though residents of one town were allowed to return Tuesday for two hours for the first time since the disaster.

In a poll by Yomiuri newspaper that surveyed mayors and leaders of 41 towns and cities in the disaster-struck areas, most said they felt there was no clear vision for rebuilding their lives.

Seventeen mayors said they did not have a clear idea of when the clearing of rubble would finish in their areas, while nine said they did not know when the electricity and water systems would function properly again.

Konoe said that many medical services in disaster-struck areas remained shut and that stress-related illnesses were among the biggest health risks to the displaced.

The total cost of the damage has been estimated at $300 billion, making it the world's most costly natural disaster. ($1 = 80.835 Japanese Yen)