Tokyo, March 17: Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano has departed for Tokyo to visit Japan’s earthquake-hit nuclear power plant.
“I want to go to Japan because this is a very serious accident,” Amano said on Thursday at Vienna airport as he was leaving for Japan with six IAEA experts.
“We wish to go to the sites,” DPA quoted the Japanese head of the IAEA as saying.
Amano said on Wednesday he would like to raise the level of cooperation between the IAEA and Japan in a high-level meeting.
The nuclear crisis at several reactors of the Fukushima plant was set off when last Friday’s earthquake and tsunami knocked out the power needed for the reactors’ cooling systems.
Over the past week, three explosions and two fires have occurred at the plant. Radiation leaks from the damaged reactors are believed to have affected up to 190 people in the region.
Officials say the situation will reach a critical stage in a couple of days if cooling operations fail to proceed.
The Plutonium found in one of the reactors can linger for years in the bone marrow or liver and eventually lead to cancer.
Japanese military helicopters have been deployed to the Fukushima nuclear power plant to help prevent a possible nuclear meltdown.
The helicopters have dumped tons of water onto Fukushima’s quake- and tsunami-damaged No.4 reactor in north-eastern Japan.
Meanwhile, the death toll from last week’s earthquake and tsunami has passed the 5,000 mark.
Police say more than 5,400 people are confirmed dead and about 9,500 more are still missing.
—-Courtesy:Presstv