Japanese officials have found abnormal radiation levels in several food products in the area surrounding the troubled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
The government says traces of radioactive substances have also been detected in tap water at a number of Japanese prefectures but are not a risk to human health.
The discoveries came as the country was rocked by another strong aftershock just as officials said they were making progress in their battle to contain the nuclear crisis and cool the power plant.
There have not been any reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued following the 6.1 magnitude earthquake.
Milk and spinach in the affected region has been found to contain radiation levels high enough to breach food-safety laws.
But chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano says there is no immediate risk to humans.
“Even though you continue to consume these product for a year, a total radiation level that will be taken inside the body will be comparable to one run of CT scan,” he said.
Mr Edano says the contaminated milk was found 30 kilometres from the plant and beyond a government exclusion zone in Fukushima prefecture, while the tainted spinach was discovered in neighbouring Ibaraki prefecture.
The government promised to investigate whether contaminated food has been transported out of the affected area.
“The government will do its utmost … to avoid health hazards and to resolve this problem,” Mr Edano said.
Meanwhile, an elite fire department team has resumed spraying tonnes of seawater into the No. 3, desperately trying to cool the fuel rods.
The trucks are expected to keep spraying for seven hours straight and the government believes the situation is being stabilised.
The government is simultaneously looking for a permanent solution and has managed to connect a 1.5-kilometre-long power cable to the plant.
Officials say the reactors’ cooling systems now have electricity and can be restarted.
But given the extent of damage at the plant, it is unclear whether the cooling system would work even if power is restored.
The lack of power has sent the temperatures of fuel rods – both in the reactors and in separate containment pools – soaring as the coolant water that normally keeps them safely submerged has rapidly evaporated.
Japan’s nuclear agency has hiked the Fukushima accident level to five from four on an international scale measuring up to seven, an admission the crisis now at least equals the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania.
The nuclear power plant was crippled on March 11 by a terrifying earthquake and tsunami which left at least 18,000 dead or missing in Japan’s worst natural disaster since 1923, according to the latest police tally.
Just over 7,300 were confirmed killed, lost to the tsunami or interred in the wreckage of buildings.
Half a million homeless people in Japan’s north-east are now struggling to stay warm in freezing temperatures and with scant supplies of food and fuel.
