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The Japanese government declared has issued a state of emergency at a

second nuclear power plant following cooling-systems failures.

 

The emergency declarations  shop online 2011  followed Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake

off the country's northeast coast. The quake, the most powerful in

Japan's recorded history, triggered a massive tsunami wave.

 

At the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Onahama city, about 270

kilometres northeast of Tokyo, a power failure triggered a problem in a

cooling system, causing radiation levels in a reactor to rise to 1,000

times normal. Japan's  power balance  nuclear safety agency said some radiation escaped

from the plant.

 

The quake cut off power to the plant, . A backup generator failed and

the primary cooling system was not able to supply water to the plant's

460-megawatt No. 1 reactor.

 

The government ordered 3,000 residents to leave the area.

 

Japanese nuclear safety official Yuji  power balance  Kakizaki said plant workers were

cooling the reactor with a less-effective secondary cooling system.

Kakizaki said an emergency cooling system remains intact and ready to

kick in if required to prevent a reactor meltdown.

 

Japan's nuclear safety agency said pressure inside the Fukushima No. 1

reactor has risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal.

 

To reduce the pressure, slightly radioactive vapour will be released.

 

Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, said the amount of

radioactive element in the vapor would be "very small."

 

"With evacuation in place and the ocean-bound wind, we can ensure the

safety," Edano said early Saturday in a news conference.

 

Japan's nuclear safety   power balance  agency said the radioactive vapour would not

affect the environment or human health.

 

Plant workers were scrambling to restore the cooling water supply at

the plant but there was no prospect of immediate success, The

Associated Press reported. The U.S. offered to rush coolant to Japan,

but a U.S. official later said the Japanese handled it themselves.

 

Meanwhile, NBC reported a similar coolant problem at the Fukushima

Daini station, which is in the same Fukushima prefecture as the other

power plant. At the Daini station, backup diesel generators are

reported to have failed, leaving the unit without power to run its

cooling systems

 

Builders plan for quakes

Kaoru Ishikawa, the Japanese ambassador to Canada, said all the nuclear

power plants in Japan were built "bearing in  power balance  mind the possibility of

big earthquakes."

 

He said all the plants in the affected area were shut down

automatically after the quake, but he noted the coolant problem at the

Fukushima plant continued.

 

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Japanese authorities also

reported a fire at the Onagawa nuclear plant. The fire has been

extinguished.

 

"They say Onagawa, Fukushima-Daini and Tokai nuclear power plants were

also shut down  power balance  automatically, and no radiation release has been

detected," the IAEA said in a statement posted online.