Osaka: Japan's nuclear safety agency yesterday raised the Fukushima crisis level to five from four on the international scale of gravity for atomic accidents, which goes to as high as seven. The Chernobyl disaster is put at seven, the highest.
The decision puts Fukushima on the same level as the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and makes it the worst ever in Japan.
UN International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano, who is on a visit to Japan, said that the battle to stabilise the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was "a race against time".
