Kyodo is reporting:
Japan raised the severity level of crisis-hit reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant from 4 to 5 on an international scale of 7, the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979, Japan’s nuclear safety agency said Friday.
The provisional evaluation stands at level 5 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale for the plant’s No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 reactors as their cores are believed to have partially melted and radiation leaks are continuing, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.
While efforts to cool down the overheating reactors and spent fuel continued a week after the plant was crippled by a massive earthquake and tsunami, Tokyo also reiterated its resolve to do everything to control the situation as International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano made an emergency visit to Tokyo.
”This is the biggest crisis for Japan,” Prime Minister Naoto Kan told Amano as they met at the premier’s office. ”Every organization (of the government)…is making all-out efforts to deal with the problem,” he said.
The premier also pledged to disclose more information to the international community with ”maximum transparency.”
The nuclear agency put the severity level at 3 for the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s No. 4 reactor, where an overheating spent fuel pool is also posing risks, and three reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant that have been controlled. The highest level of 7 has only been applied to the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.