Frantic efforts underway in Japan to avert catastrophe

Fukushima/Tokyo, Mar 18 (PTI) Japan on Friday inched
perilously close to a Chernobyl-like disaster with the threat
level at its quake-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant rising
as fresh problems cropped up to cool overheated reactors and
plug leakages, prompting an alarmed IAEA to describe the
situation as "extremely serious".
Even as efforts were redoubled to avert a meltdown and
engineers struggled hard to fix power cables to restart water
pumps, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency admitted
that the cores at the plant's No.1, 2 and 3 reactors had
partially melted and radiation leaks were continuing.
The accident severity level at the plant was raised from
four to five on the 7-point international scale by the agency,
placing the crisis two levels below Ukraine's 1986 Chernobyl
disaster, a week after the magnitude-9 quake and massive
tsunami rocked the country leaving over 17,000 people dead or
unaccounted for.
The Chernobyl accident was caused by rupture of a
reactor vessel followed by a series of explosions leading to
a radioactive fallout that claimed the lives of over 4,000
people.
The reclassification of the severity level at the
Fukushima plant also placed the crisis on par with the Three
Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979.
"This is the largest crisis for Japan," Prime Minister
Naoto Kan said during his meeting with visiting IAEA chief
Yukiya Amano, adding that "every organisation (of the
government)...is making all-out efforts to deal with the
problem."
In a nationally televised address, Kan said he was
confident that Japan will overcome the worst crisis since
World War II and thanked the people for showing calm and
sought their cooperation in rebuilding the country.
Soon after arriving in Tokyo, Amano, a Japanese national
who was accompanied by a four-member team of nuclear experts,
said: "We see it (the nuclear crisis) as an extremely serious
accident."
"The international community is extremely concerned about
this issue, and it's important to cooperate in dealing with
it," he said, adding it was a race against clock.
The UN atomic watchdog has convened a meeting of its
35-member of board of governors on Monday in Vienna where
Amano will them on his return from Japan.
Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the operator of the
nuclear plant, accelerated efforts to restore the lost cooling
function of the reactors by reconnecting electricity to the
site through outside power lines.
Some of the power distribution boards at the plant have
been damaged by the quake-triggered tsunami and TEPCO will use
makeshift replacement equipment.