Breach Now Feared at Japan Nuclear Plant

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Friday called the country's ongoing fight to stabilise the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant "very grave and serious", after officials announced a suspected breach in one of the reactors.

A breach would raise the possibility of more severe radioactive contamination, two weeks after a devastating earthquake and tsunami disabled the nuclear complex.

"The situation today at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant is still very grave and serious. We must remain vigilant," Mr Kan said. "We are not in a position where we can be optimistic. We must treat every development with the utmost care."

The apparent breach is in Unit 3 and it might be a crack or a hole in the stainless steel chamber of the reactor core or in the spent fuel pool that's lined with several feet of reinforced concrete.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said suspicions were raised when two workers suffered skin burns after wading into water 10,000 times more radioactive than levels normally found in water in or around a reactor.

People who reside in the immediate area have been told to stay inside or vacate the area.

Meltdown is Near as Third Explosion Rocks Sendai Plant

Radiation is spewing from damaged reactors at a crippled nuclear power plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan in a dramatic escalation of the four-day-old catastrophe.

Japan's prime minister Naoto Kan has warned residents to stay inside or risk getting radiation sickness following a fire at the at the number-four reactor at the quake-hit Fukushima No.1 atomic power plant.

A government spokesman said radiation emanating from the plant is high enough in nearby areas to damage health.

Radiation levels have risen considerably, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said.

In a televisised press conference this afternoon, Kan told people within 30 kilometres of the troubled nuclear power plant to stay indoors.  Another evacuation may have to take place.

Japanese officials who have said for sometime that the problem was contained are now changing their tone a little. 

Workers were earlier evacuated from the number-two reactor plant.

'‘We have moved our staff to a safer area,’’ the TEPCO spokesman said this morning.

An official from Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said ‘‘that workers near the reactor No.2, excluding those who are pumping water to cool the reactor, have been evacuated.’’