Record levels of radioactive caesium were detected in fish caught within 20 kilometers of Japan’s damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

The operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said on Tuesday that it had found 25,800 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive caesium in greenling, 258 times higher than the government safety standard. This is the next case of radiation after mutant butterflies found this year in Japan.

Fishing in waters off the plant has been voluntarily restricted since the Fukushima nuclear disaster at the plant, which went into meltdown after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Less than a month after the start of the disaster, Tokyo Electric dumped more than 11 thousand tons of wastewater containing radioactive substances into the Pacific.

According to the Fisheries Agency the last record of radioactive contamination in fish was 18,700 becquerels per kilogram detected in cherry salmon caught in March.

Record Radiation Fish found / Fukushima Nuclear Disaster News

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said the greenlings might have fed in radioactive hotspots and that it would sample more of the fish, their feed and the seabed soil in the area in the coming weeks to determine the cause of the high radiation.

Fishermen have been allowed since June to catch – on an experimental basis – several kinds of fish and shellfish, but only in areas more than fifty kilometres off the plant. Those catches have shown only small amounts of radioactivity.

Greenlings have not been caught by fishermen off Fukushima since the massive earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns in reactors at the plant.

Wakao Hanaoka, a Greenpeace Japan official, said the government now needs to carry out a full investigation of Fukushima radioactive contamination in a wide range of sea areas off Fukushima, which has not been done yet.

Factors that affect the spread of contamination include ocean currents and seabed configuration.

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