Workers ordered to leave, cooling work halted
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Workers were ordered to withdraw from a stricken Japanese nuclear power plant on Wednesday after radiation levels rose, Kyodo news reported, a development that suggested the crisis was spiralling out of control.
* Smoke seen rising from quake-crippled nuclear facility
* More than 10,000 feared killed by quake, tsunami; 140,000 told to stay indoors
* Japan stocks up nearly 5 pct after dropping more than 10 pct in two days
Just hours earlier another fire broke out at the plant, which has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo in the past 24 hours, triggering international alarm.
Japan's chief government spokesman said it was "not realistic" to think the Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima, 240 kms (150 miles) north of Tokyo, would reach the start of a nuclear chain reaction, but said officials were talking to the U.S. military about possible help.
While public broadcaster NHK said flames were no longer visible at the building housing the No.4 reactor of the plant, TV pictures showed smoke or steam rising from the facility around 0100 GMT.
Academics and nuclear experts agree that the solutions being proposed to contain damage to the reactors are last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
"This is a slow-moving nightmare," said Dr Thomas Neff, a research affiliate at the Center for International Studies, which is part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Concern had earlier been mounting that the skeleton crews dealing with the crisis might not be big enough, or were possibly exhausted after working for days since Friday's massive earthquake damaged the facility. Authorities had withdrawn 750 workers on Tuesday, leaving only 50.
The plight of hundreds of thousands left homeless by the quake and devastating tsunami that followed worsened overnight following a cold snap that brought snow to some of the worst-affected areas.
While the official death toll stands at around 4,000, more than 7,000 are listed as missing and the figure is expected to rise.
In the first hint of international frustration at the pace of updates from Japan, Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he wanted more timely and detailed information.
"We do not have all the details of the information so what we can do is limited," Amano told a news conference in Vienna. "I am trying to further improve the communication."
Work to cool reactors had halted at the plant, it said.
There have been hundreds of aftershocks and more than two dozen are greater than magnitude 6, the size of the earthquake that severely damaged Christchurch, New Zealand last month.
About 850,000 households in the north were still without electricity in near-freezing weather, Tohuku Electric Power Co. said, and the government said at least 1.5 million households lack running water. Tens of thousands of people were missing.
Hiromichi Shirakawa, chief economist for Japan at Credit Suisse, said in a note to clients that the economic loss will likely be around 14-15 trillion yen ($171-183 billion) just to the region hit by the quake and tsunami.
"The earthquake could have great implications on the global economic front," said Andre Bakhos, director of market analytics at Lec Securities in New York. "If you shut down Japan, there could be a global recession."
