Fukushima upgraded to Chernobyl crisis level

Confusion surrounds the severity of the Fukushima nuclear disaster following the Japanese nuclear agency's decision to raise the threat level from 5 to 7. The new rating puts the meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi on a par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster - yet Japanese nuclear officials have been quick to pour cold water on suggestions that there is a comparable threat to human health.

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a level 7 rating denotes a "major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures".

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (Nisa) made the decision to raise the level after a month of analysing data. They say that the level 7 rating applies to the situation in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Radiation levels have since fallen considerably.

(Each reactor has been rated separately as a level 5 accident - it is the situation as a whole that merits the level 7 label).

Hidehiko Nishiyama, the deputy director general of Nisa, played down the inevitable comparisons to Chernobyl, saying: "At Chernobyl, there was acute exposure to a high level of radiation, and 29 people died from it. This is not the case in Fukushima."

In addition, he said, while at Chernobyl the reactor itself had exploded, "in Fukushima the reactors themselves have stayed intact".

The total radiation released, he says, is around 10 per cent of the amount detected at Chernobyl.

However, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which operates the nuclear plant, said: "The radiation leak has not stopped completely: the concern is that the severity could eventually exceed Chernobyl."

The crisis level upgrade is a vindication for those who have warned Fukushima is more serious than the authorities were admitting in the face of ridicule from nuclear industry spokesmen and their cheerleaders.

Two days after the tsunami, nuclear analyst John Large told The First Post he thought Fukushima could be a "significant nuclear event" and gave several reasons why he thought so, including the fact that a "jellyfish shaped" explosion had occurred in reactor 1.

Since then he has expressed frustration at the conflicting information coming out of the Japanese authorities and the resulting speculation. ·