Radioactive contamination from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant crippled by tsunami in 2011 has drifted as far north as waters off a remote Alaska island in the Bering Strait, scientists said on Wednesday.

Analysis of seawater collected last year near St. Lawrence Island revealed a slight elevation in levels of radioactive cesium-137 attributable to the Fukushima disaster, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Sea Grant program said.

"This is the northern edge of the plume," said Gay Sheffield, a Sea Grant marine advisory agent based in the Bering Sea town of Nome, Alaska.