Japan raises nuke accident severity to highest level

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TOKYO, April 12 (Xinhua) — Japan’s nuclear safety agency announced on Tuesday that it has raised the severity level of the accident at the crippled Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant to 7, the worst on an international scale, from the current 5.

The ranking had only been applied to the 1986 Chernobyl accident. According to Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the amount of radiation emissions released at the Fukushima plant was equivalent to 10 percent of that in the Chernobyl accident.

The International Atomic Energy Agency described an accident ranked 7 as a major one.

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