Six-mile exclusion zone placed around crippled nuclear reactor as radiation
hits 1,000 times safe level
By
Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:08 PM on 11th March 2011
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3,000 evacuated from area
Pressure rises to 1.5 times normal level
Experts warn the situation 'could turn grave'
The situation at a Japanese nuclear power plant badly damaged by today's
earthquake became critical this evening when radiation rose to 1,000 times the
safe level.Officials were ordering residents within a six-mile radius of the
Fukushima No.1 power plant to evacuate immediately as fears that it could
explode
grew.
Earlier tonight they had proposed releasing radioactive vapour into the
atmosphere in a bid to prevent an explosion after its cooling system failed.
The country's nuclear safety agency says pressure inside the reactor had risen
to 1.5 times the level considered normal.
Officials said the vapour that would be released would not affect the
environment or human health.Scroll down for video
Danger: The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant
could explode after equipment used to cool down the reactor failed
following the Japanese earthquake
Previously officials had said there was no leak of deadly radiation from the
crippled facility in Onahama city, about 170 miles north-east of Tokyo
in the Fukushima prefecture.
But they had already evacuated around 2,800 residents within a
two-mile radius of the plant.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the nuclear power plant
developed a mechanical failure in the system which cools the reactor
after it was shut down in the earthquake.He said the measure was a precaution,
there was no radiation leak and the facility was not in immediate danger.Plant
workers are now scrambling to restore cooling water supplies, but warned there
was no prospect of an immediate
success.
Ablaze: An oil refinery is on fire in Chiba city
- just one of many fires sparked by the 8.9 magnitude earthquake - the
sixth biggest ever recorded
Disaster scene: The Fukushima No. 1 power plant run by the Tokyo Electric Power
Co. at Okuma in northern Japan, pictured in 2008
It is understood that water levels at the facility have not reached critical
levels.But
while workers at the nuclear facility battled to restore normal
function, a huge fire engulfed a natural gas facility in Chiba
Prefecture near Tokyo.Flames
soared hundreds of feet into the air from the terminal which is based
in the sea and felt the full force of the earthquake.
Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365333/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-State-emergency-nuclear-power-plant-crippled.html#ixzz1GKroAvZv
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