Japan raises nuclear crisis level

Japan’s nuclear safety agency has raised the severity rating of the country’s nuclear crisis from Level 4 to Level 5, putting it on par with the Three Mile Island accident in the US in 1979.

Ryohei Shiomi, a spokesman for the nuclear safety agency, said the agency raised the rating of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear crisis on the seven-level International Nuclear Event Scale.

The scale defines a Level 4 incident as having local consequences and a Level 5 incident as having wider consequences.

The hallmarks of a Level 5 emergency are severe damage to a reactor core, release of large quantities of radiation with a high probability of “significant” public exposure or several deaths from radiation.