The Fukushima Accident Until Friday, Noted at Level 4 - Same as Ibaraki Prefecture Nuclear Accident in 1999: Now Level 5

The Japanese government raised its rating on Friday of the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to the same level as the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.  The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency revised upward its evaluation of the severity of the disaster by one notch to Level 5 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale.

Level 5 is the third highest on the 8-notch scale and the worst for any nuclear accident to have happened in Japan.  The agency says it raised the rating because more than 3 percent of the nuclear fuel has been damaged and radioactive material is leaking from the plant.  The disaster's initial rating of Level 4 was the same as the fatal criticality accident that occurred at a nuclear fuel plant in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1999.

Friday, March 18, 2011 20:01 +0900 (JST)

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Luis Kun, Ph.D., FAIMBE, FIEEE
Professor of National Security

Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS) -National Defense University

Fort Lesley McNair Washington, DC 20319 

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Editor in Chief - Journal of Health & Technology - Springer -
IFMBE Administrative Council (2009-2015) & Chairman Global Citizen Safety and Security WG (2009-2012)

IEEE Computer Society - Board of Governors (2010-2012)