Tokyo, April 14: The president of Japan’s quake-hit power plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), has apologized for the nuclear crisis at the facility.
On Wednesday, TEPCO chief, Masataka Shimizu, once again apologized because of the nuclear crisis that threatens the country after Japan’s nuclear safety agency raised the level of nuclear crisis at Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Shimizu said the company hoped to restore the cooling system at the reactors as soon as possible, but he did not specify a timetable for the end of the crisis.
On Tuesday, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency raised the severity level of the situation at Fukushima from 5 to 7, the worst on an international scale.
According to Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, the amount of radiation emissions released at the Fukushima plant was equivalent to 10 percent of that in the Chernobyl accident.
Severity level of 7 had only been applied to the 1986 Chernobyl accident.
An explosion and ensuing fire in Chernobyl nuclear power plant resulted in a severe release of radioactivity into the environment, claiming the lives of at least 4,000 people.
——-Agencies