Some evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe will have to wait years longer before they can return home after Japan admitted its radiation clean-up in the most contaminated towns is behind schedule.

The operator of Japan’s tsunami-flooded nuclear power complex was seeking ways today to pull damaged spent fuel rods out of a storage pool at one of its reactors, citing surging radiation and elevated temperatures as worrisome signs.

JAPAN raised the crisis level at its crippled nuclear plant to a severity on a par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, citing high overall radiation leaks that have contaminated the air, tap water, vegetables and seawater.

RADIATION levels are continuing to rise in the ocean outside a leaking nuclear plant in Japan’s northeast as officials debated whether to broaden the evacuation zone around the tsunami-damaged facility.

New readings show radiation levels continue to rise in the ocean outside a leaking nuclear plant in Japan's north east, officials said today, as they debated whether to broaden the evacuation zone around the tsunami-damaged facility.