IAEA: Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Plant Situation Stabilizes

Japanese medical personnel check a woman evacuated from her home near the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant for radiation exposure in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, 18 March. EPA/BGNES

The situation with Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant badly damaged by the recent 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the ensuing tsunami is serious but is stabilizing, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

As part of the efforts for cooling down the reactors and preventing their meltdown, military and police trucks have continued to spray tons of water on the overheated fuel storage pool at reactor 3 of Fukushima I nuclear power plant, DPA reported

The water "almost certainly reached" the fuel storage pool, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters, as cited by the German press agency DPA.

Cooling systems at the reactors failed after the electricity system was knocked out in the disaster.

"I would characterize it as moving to a stable situation," senior IAEA official Graham Andrew told reporters at the agency's seat in Vienna. However, Andrew warned that the state of the plant remained "very serious."

He cited ongoing work to bring electricity back to reactor unit 2, stabilization of pressure inside the core of reactor 3 and the even temperature level at the spent-fuel pond at reactor 6 as positive signs.

Xynhua pointed out that regarding radiation monitoring, Andrew said regular radiation information is being received from 14 Japanese cities, and dose rate in Tokyo and other cities remain far below from the level of requiring an action, which means there is no danger to human health.

IAEA experts sent to Japan have began radiation monitoring work in Tokyo, and they hope to move to the region of Fukushima, where the quake-crippled nuclear plant are located, as soon as possible.

He also announced IAEA chief Yukiya Amano plans to convene a meeting of the 35-nation IAEA board of governors on Monday at the agency's Vienna headquarter.

Workers were trying to recover power at reactors 1 and 2 by late Friday and at reactors 3 and 4 by Sunday, to pump cooling water to the reactors, ABC News reported.

Japan raised the rating of the nuclear accident up one step to level 5 on the 7-step INES scale, labelling it as an 'accident with wider consequences,' because reactor cores have been damaged.

The new rating on the so-called INES scale puts the accident on the same level as the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in the United States, where the core was severely damaged.

Radiation levels around reactor 3 fell slightly on Thursday after it was sprayed by military firefighters, Japan's nuclear safety commission said Friday.

Officials of the World Health Organization and the IAEA said separately that there was no general health risk for Japan's population, despite temporary elevated radiation levels over the past days.

Earlier Friday, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano arrived in Japan and met Prime Minister Naoto Kan and other officials to discuss the nuclear crisis.

Meanwhile, cooperation between Japan and the United States seemed to be going more smoothly, as the the US military has ordered 450 nuclear emergency experts to prepare to deploy to Japan if needed.

Communication and coordination in the current crisis had been seamless, thanks to close cooperation between the US military and its Japanese counterpart for decades, said Navy Admiral Robert Willard, who will be in charge of the US military assistance to Japan.

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