Japan situation worrying but stable, says UN

Tokyo: Diplomats and United Nations officials sought on Friday to dispel fears of a wider danger from radioactivity spewing from Japan's crippled nuclear reactors, saying there were no hazards to health outside the immediate vicinity.

Driven by winds over the Pacific Ocean, the radioactive plume released last week from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant reached Southern California on Friday, heightening concerns that the nuclear disaster was assuming international proportions.

As emergency efforts to reduce the dangers of increased radiation from the crippled plant went into their eighth day, the UN nuclear agency described the situation for the second day in a row as worrying but stable.

Japanese officials on Friday reclassified the rating of the accident at the plant from Level 4 to Level 5 on a seven-level international scale, putting it on a par with the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.

The International Nuclear Event Scale defines a Level 4 incident as having local consequences and a Level 5 as having wider consequences.

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Nuclear experts have been saying for days that Japan was underplaying the severity of the nuclear crisis.

The hallmarks of a Level 5 emergency are severe damage to a reactor core, release of large quantities of radiation with a high probability of "significant" public exposure or several deaths from radiation.

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The Chernobyl accident of 1986, which killed at least 31 people with radiation sickness, raised long-term cancer rates and spewed radiation for hundreds of miles (kilometres) was ranked a Level 7.

Live pictures shown on Japanese television on Saturday morning showed white steam rising from the plant's Number Three reactor.

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The pictures were shot from a helicopter about 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) south of the crippled plant.