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Japan raises nuclear alert level | Japan raises nuclear alert level |
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Japan has raised the alert level at a stricken nuclear plant from four to five on a seven-point international scale for atomic accidents. | Japan has raised the alert level at a stricken nuclear plant from four to five on a seven-point international scale for atomic accidents. |
The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi site is now two levels below Ukraine's 1986 Chernobyl disaster. | |
The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog warned in Tokyo the battle to stabilise the plant was a race against time. | |
The crisis was prompted by last week's huge quake and tsunami, which left more than 16,000 people dead or missing. | |
The Japanese nuclear agency's decision to raise the alert level to five grades Fukushima's as an "accident with wider consequences". | |
It also places the situation there on a par with 1979's Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the US. | |
Meanwhile, further heavy snowfall overnight brought more misery to survivors of the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami, all but ending hopes of finding anyone else alive in the rubble. | |
According to the latest figures, 6,405 people are confirmed dead and about 10,200 are listed missing. | |
On Friday, people across Japan observed a minute's silence at 1446 (0546 GMT), exactly one week after the disaster. | |
As the country paused to remember, relief workers toiling in the ruins bowed their heads, while elderly survivors in evacuation centres wept. | |
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, arrived in Tokyo and said the Fukushima crisis was a "race against the clock". | |
"This is not something that just Japan should deal with, and people of the entire world should co-operate with Japan and the people in the disaster areas," said Mr Amano, a Japanese citizen. | "This is not something that just Japan should deal with, and people of the entire world should co-operate with Japan and the people in the disaster areas," said Mr Amano, a Japanese citizen. |
He said he would not visit the Fukushima Daiichi site on his current trip to the country. | He said he would not visit the Fukushima Daiichi site on his current trip to the country. |
His four-member team of nuclear experts would start by monitoring radiation in the capital, he said, before moving to the vicinity of the quake-hit facility, reports Kyodo news agency. | His four-member team of nuclear experts would start by monitoring radiation in the capital, he said, before moving to the vicinity of the quake-hit facility, reports Kyodo news agency. |
Military fire trucks have been spraying the plant's overheating reactor units for a second day. | |
Water in at least one fuel pool - in reactor 3 - is believed to be dangerously low, exposing the stored fuel rods. | |
If the ponds run dry, a nuclear chain reaction could release more radiation into the atmosphere. | |
An electricity line has been bulldozed through to the site and engineers are racing to connect it, but they are being hampered by radiation. | |
The plant's operators need the power cable to restart water pumps that pour cold water on the fuel rods. | |
Military helicopters which dropped water from above on Thursday have been kept on standby. | |
Televised footage of the airdrops had shown much of the water blowing away in the wind. | |
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