TOKYO — Japan’s ranking of its nuclear crisis at the highest possible severity on an international scale — the same level as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster — does not signal a worsening of the plant’s status in recent days or any new health dangers, officials said Tuesday.
Still, people living nearby who have endured a month of spewing radiation and frequent earthquakes said the change in status added to their unease despite government efforts to play down any notion that the crisis poses immediate health risks.
Miyuki Ichisawa closed her coffee shop this week when the government added her community, Iitate village, and four others to places people should leave to avoid long-term radiation exposure. The additions expanded the 12-mile zone where people had been ordered to evacuate soon after the March 11 tsunami swamped the plant.
“And now the government is officially telling us this accident is at the same level of Chernobyl,” Ichisawa said. “It’s very shocking to me.”
Japanese regulators said the severity rating was raised from 5 to 7 on an international scale overseen by the International Atomic Energy Agency due to new assessments of the overall radiation leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said Japan’s decision did not mean the disaster had been downplayed previously. Early actions by Japanese authorities — evacuations, radiation warnings and the work at the plant to contain leaks — showed they realized the gravity of the situation, said Denis Flory, an IAEA deputy director general.
The upgraded status did not mean radiation from the plant was worsening, but rather reflected concern about long- term health risks as it continues to spew into the air, soil and seawater. Most radiation exposures around the region haven’t been high enough yet to raise significant health concerns.
Workers are still trying to restore disabled cooling systems at the plant, and radioactive isotopes have been detected in tap water, fish and vegetables.
Work to stabilize the plant has been impeded by continued aftershocks, the latest a 6.3-magnitude quake Tuesday that prompted plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, to temporarily pull back workers.
In a televised address, Japan’s prime minister, Naoto Kan, gave the nation a pep talk, telling people to focus on recovering from the disasters that are believed to have killed 25,000 people. “Let’s live normally without falling into excessive self-restraint,” he said. “We should eat and drink products from the quake-hit areas as a form of support.”
A month after the disaster, more than 145,000 people are still living in shelters.
