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.’’

Meltdown Possibly Occurring at Japanese Plant

A meltdown may be occurring at one of the reactors at an earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant in northeast Japan a government official told cable netwok CNN Sunday morning Japan time.

"There is a possibility, we see the possibility of a meltdown," said Toshihiro Bannai, director of the international affairs office of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety, in a telephone interview with CNN from the agency's Tokyo headquarters. "At this point, we have still not confirmed that there is an actual meltdown, but there is a possibility."

Bannai said engineers have been unable to get close enough to the reactor's core to know what's going on, and that he based his conclusion on radioactive cesium and iodine measured in the air near the plant Saturday night.

Plant officials have since injected seawater and boron into the plant in an effort to cool its nuclear fuel.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency announced Sunday that 15 patients and an ambulance were exposed to radiation at a hospital within seven miles of the plant, Kyodo News Agency reported.

A state of emergency has been declared for the reactor and two of the other five reactors at the same complex, he said, and three are in a safe, shut-down state.

"The other two still have some cooling systems, but not enough capacity," he said.

News of the possible meltdown came as rescue efforts resumed Sunday morning in areas devastated by the magnitude 8.9 quake and subsequent tsunami.

Meltdown Possible at Japanese Power Plant

Radiation leaked froma damaged Japanese nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday,the government said, after an explosion blew the roof off thefacility in the wake of a massive earthquake.  The developments raised fears of a meltdown at the plant asofficials scrambled to contain what could be the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 that shocked the world.      

The Japanese plant was damaged by Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake, which sent a 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.     "We are looking into the cause and the situation and we'll make that public when we have further information," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said after confirming theexplosion and radiation leak at the plant.

An evacuation radius has been widened to 12 miles and residents of the region have been urged to stay indoors, turn off air conditioning units and not to drink tap water.

Radioactivity in the control room at the plant is 1,000 times the normal level - and eight times the normal level in the area immediately outside the site.