Tokyo, Mar 18(ANI): Japan has raised the alert level at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant from four to five on a seven-point international scale for atomic incidents.
Level 5 is used to describe an accident with "wider consequences."
The crisis is now two levels below Ukraine's 1986 Chernobyl disaster. It also places the situation there on a par with 1979's Three Mile Island nuclear accident in the US.
The crisis was prompted by last week's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which has left at least 16,000 people dead or missing.
Meanwhile, soldiers from Japan's Self Defense Force sprayed water onto the No. 3 reactor using fire trucks and water cannons, continuing efforts to keep spent fuel rods covered so they do not release massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere.
Leaving the spent rods uncovered allows them to overheat causing them catch on fire and release significant amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. Such a problem would be extremely difficult to solve. (ANI)
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