The operator of Japan's crippled nuclear power plant has stopped highly radioactive water leaking into the sea using 'liquid glass' to seal it.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant was badly damaged after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that devastated much of the north-east coast of Japan on 11 March.
The BBC reports the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, has injected 1500 litres of sodium silicate, also known as liquid glass, into stones and soil beneath a maintenance pit where highty radioactive water had been leaking into the Pacific Ocean.
The company says the flow of water has been stopped.
However, it is still pumping 11,500 tonnes of less contaminated water used to cool fuel rods into the Pacific to make room for the storage of more highly contaminated water filling the No 2 reactor's turbine building and nearby areas.
Caesium found in fish
Authorities say radioactive caesium has been found in a species of fish and is believed that the contamination came from the overheated fuel rods at the plant.
Caesium has a half-life of 30 years, making it extremely toxic.
Authorities say the substance has been found in a species of fish called young lance, a tiny fish which is eaten dried or cooked. The contaminated catch was found in Ibaraki prefecture, about 80km south of the Fukushima plant, the ABC reports.
The government is still allowing catches of young lance but fishing cooperatives near the affected area have banned their members from harvesting the fish.
TEPCO says it has detected radioactive iodine 131, which has a half-life of several days, at 7.5 million times above the legal limit in seawater near the Fukushima plant.
No threat to Pacific stock - expert
A regional fisheries expert says Pacific Island communities should not be concerned about any radioactive contamination of fish stocks.
A programme manager at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, John Hampton, says skipjack, yellow fin and big eye tuna are of most interest to the region and they are usually concentrated around the equator.
Although they occur in the north Pacific around Japan, he says evidence from tagging programmes indicates they do not rapidly move round the Pacific.
Dr Hampton says the diluting effects of the ocean would also help minimise any threat to local fisheries.
