SOMA, Japan (AP) - High levels of radiation leaked from a crippled nuclear plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan after a third reactor was rocked by an explosion Tuesday and a fourth caught fire in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe. The government warned 140,000 people nearby to stay indoors to avoid exposure.Tokyo also reported slightly elevated radiation levels, but officials said the increase was too small to threaten the 39 million people in and around the capital, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) away.In a nationally televised statement, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said radiation has spread from four reactors of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima state, one of the hardest-hit in Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami that has killed more than 10,000 people, plunged millions into misery and pummeled the world's third-largest economy.Officials just south of Fukushima reported up to 100 times the normal levels of radi ation Tuesday morning, Kyodo News agency reported. While those figures are worrying if there is prolonged exposure, they are far from fatal.
(AP) In this image made off Japan's NTV/NNN Japan television footage, smoke ascends from the Fukushima...Full ImageKan and other officials warned there is danger of more leaks and told people living within 19 miles (30 kilometers) of the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex to stay indoors to avoid exposure that could make people sick."Please do not go outside. Please stay indoors. Please close windows and make your homes airtight," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told residents in the danger zone. "Don't turn on ventilators. Please hang your laundry indoors.""These are figures that potentially affect health. There is no mistake about that," he said.Weather forecasts for Fukushima were for snow and wind from the northeast Tuesday evening, blowing southwest toward Tokyo, then shifting and blowing west out to sea. That's important because it shows which direction a possible nuclear cloud might blow.The nuclear crisis is the worst Japan has faced since the atomic bombing of Hiroshi ma and Nagasaki during World War II. It is also the first time that such a grave nuclear threat has been raised in the world since a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine exploded in 1986.
(AP) Japan Self-Defense Forces personnel search for victims around a ship swept out by Friday's tsunami...Full ImageSome 70,000 people had already been evacuated from a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius from the Dai-ichi complex and about 140,000 remain in the zone for which the new warning was issued.Workers were striving to stabilize three reactors at the power plant that exploded in the wake of Friday's quake and tsunami, after losing their ability to cool down and releasing some radiation. A fourth reactor that was shut down caught fire on Tuesday and more radiation was released, Edano said.The fire was put out. Even though the fourth reactor was shut down, the fire there was believed to be the source of the elevated radiation."It is likely that the level of radiation increased sharply due to a fire at Unit 4," Edano said. "Now we are talking about levels that can damage human health. These are readings taken near the area where we believe the releases are happening. Far a way, the levels should be lower."He said another reactor whose containment building exploded Monday had not contributed greatly to the increased radiation.
(AP) Japan Ground Self-Defense Force soldiers urge an elderly woman to move to higher ground during a...Full ImageOfficials said 50 workers, all of them wearing protective radiation gear, were still trying to put water into the reactors to cool them. They say 800 other staff were evacuated. The fires and explosions at the reactors have injured 15 workers and military personnel and exposed up to 190 people to elevated radiation.In Tokyo, slightly higher-than-normal radiation levels were detected Tuesday but officials insisted there are no health dangers."The amount is extremely small, and it does not raise health concerns. It will not affect us," Takayuki Fujiki, a Tokyo government official said.Kyodo reported that radiation levels nine times higher than normal were briefly detected in Kanagawa prefecture near Tokyo and that the Tokyo metropolitan government said it had detected a small amount of radioactive materials in the city's air.Japanese government officials are bein g rightly cautious, said Donald Olander, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at University of California at Berkeley. He believed even the heavily elevated levels of radiation around Dai'ichi are "not a health hazard." But without knowing specific dose levels, he said it was hard to make judgments on the evacuation orders.
(AP) Japan Ground Self-Defense Force members search for the victims of Friday's tsunami in Miyako, Iwate...Full Image"Right now it's worse than Three Mile Island," Olander said. But, he said, it's nowhere near the levels released during Chernobyl.On Three Mile Island, the radiation leak was held inside the containment shell - thick concrete armor around the reactor. The Chernobyl reactor had no shell and was also operational when the disaster struck. The Japanese reactors automatically shut down when the quake hit and are encased in containment shells.Olander said encasing the reactors in a concrete sarcophagus - the last-ditch effort done in Chernobyl - is far too premature. Operators need to wait until they cool more, or risk making the situation even worse.The death toll from last week's earthquake and tsunami jumped Tuesday as police confirmed the number killed had topped 2,400, though that grim news was overshadowed by a deepening nuclear crisis. Officials have said p reviously that at least 10,000 people may have died in Miyagi province alone.Millions of people spent a fourth night with little food, water or heating in near-freezing temperatures as they dealt with the loss of homes and loved ones. Asia's richest country hasn't seen such hardship since World War II.
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