For all the scary headlines generated by the explosion at one of Japan's nuclear plants, the situation is far from dire, at least for now.
It is a Level 4 emergency, and scientists say that on a scale of 1 to 7, that is serious but manageable. The rating is bestowed by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency and has been given to the Japanese nuclear power plants, Daiichi and Daini, after an explosion, based on the agency's Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. The nuclear accident at Chernobyl, a power plant in Ukraine, in 1986, the worst ever, was Level 7, and the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania was rated Level 5.
The assessment comes as U.S. officials are carefully monitoring the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, although President Obama had no public involvement on Saturday. "Senior officials and technical experts from the Department of Energy continue to be in close contact with other agencies as well as with our Japanese counterparts as we work to assess what is a very serious and fluid situation," says spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller. "The United States will continue to work closely with the Japanese government and will provide whatever assistance they request to help them bring the reactors under control." Read the full report here.
Source: by Tara McKelvey, The Daily Breast, U.S. News.
