Japan raises nuclear crisis to Chernobyl level

TOKYO: Japan has raised the seriousness of the nuclear crisis at the highest level on Tuesday, put on a par with the worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986 because of the amount of radiation emitted into the air and the sea

As another important reply is rocked by an earthquake ravaged the country, a fire broke out at the plant in Fukushima Daiichi power, although the engineers later seemed to have extinguished the fire.

Developments of recent days suggest the operator of the facility is not nearly hit restore cooling systems in reactors, which is essential to lower the temperature of overheating nuclear fuel rods.

A senior Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said that according to cumulative levels of radiation emitted, the seriousness of the incident was brought to 7, the worst on an internationally recognized scale.

A senior official in the office of Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the reason for raising the level at 7 a month after the disaster is that it took time to measure and estimate the total radiation emitted by the plant nuclear damage.

"Even before that, we considered this very serious incident, in this sense, there will be no big change in how we deal with him just because he was designated Level 7," the official said .