TOKYO, MARCH 12: An explosion at a nuclear power plant in Japan destroyed the building housing the reactor today triggering radiation leaks under the impact of the massive quake and the tsunami it spawned which has left at least 1,700 people dead or unaccounted for.
The radiation leak was low after the explosion destroyed the exterior walls of the building where the reactor is placed, but not the actual metal housing enveloping the reactor, government spokesman Yukio Edano told reporters. The explosion which left four persons injured led to a “nationwide atomic alert”.
Kyodo news agency said the combined number of people who have died or are unaccounted for in yesterday’s double disaster that devastated the country’s north-western coast is feared to top 1,700.
Local media reports said at least 1,300 may have been killed while chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said it was believed that more than 1,000 people had died.
There were fears that the death toll would rise with Fuji TV reporting that as many as 10,000 people were missing in the town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi. One report said four whole trains had disappeared and still not been located.
The building housing the main reactor at Fukushima nuclear plant in northern Japan, 250 km north of Tokyo, exploded this afternoon leading to radiation leaks injuring four people as the authorities told 45,000 residents living within a 10-km radius of the leaking plant to evacuate their homes, Kyodo reported. The injuries are not life threatening, an official said.
“The plant is experiencing a nuclear meltdown,” Japanese nuclear scientists confirmed, after Prime Minister Naoto Kan visited the site in a helicopter early today.
Kan urged calm among people living near the plant.
