TOKYO Exhausted engineers attached a power cable to the outside of Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear plant on Saturday in a race to prevent deadly radiation from an accident now rated at least as bad as America's Three Mile Island incident in 1979. 
 
 Further cabling inside was under way before an attempt to restart water pumps needed to cool overheated nuclear fuel rods at the six-reactor Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo. 
 
 Japan's unprecedented multiple crisis of earthquake, tsunami and radiation leak has unsettled world financial markets, prompted international reassessment of nuclear safety and given the Asian nation its sternest test since World War Two. 
 
 It has also stirred unhappy memories of Japan's past nuclear nightmare -- the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. 
 
 Working inside a 20 km (12 miles) evacuation zone at Fukushima, nearly 300 engineers were focused on trying to find a solution by restoring power to pumps in four of the reactors. 
 
 "TEPCO has connected the external transmission line with the receiving point of the plant and confirmed that electricity can be supplied," the plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said in a statement. 
 
 Another 1,480 meters (5,000 feet) of cable are being laid inside the complex before engineers try to crank up the coolers at reactor No.2, followed by numbers 1, 3 and 4 this weekend, company officials said. 
 
 If that works it will be a turning point. 
 
 "If they are successful in getting the cooling infrastructure up and running, that will be a significant step forward in establishing stability," said Eric Moore, a nuclear power expert at U.S.-based FocalPoint Consulting Group. 
 
 If not, there is an option of last resort under consideration to bury the sprawling 40-year-old plant in sand and concrete to prevent a catastrophic radiation release. 
 
 That method was used to seal huge leakages from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. 
 
 Underlining authorities' desperation, fire trucks sprayed water overnight in a crude tactic to cool reactor No.3, considered the most critical because of its use of mixed oxides, or mox, containing both uranium and highly toxic plutonium. 
 
 Japan has raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis to level 5 from 4 on the seven-level INES international scale, putting it on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, although some experts say it is more serious. 
 
 Chernobyl, in Ukraine, was a 7 on that scale. 
 
 THOUSANDS DEAD, MISSING AND SUFFERING 
 
 The operation to avert large-scale radiation has overshadowed the humanitarian aftermath of the 9.0-magnitude quake and 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami that struck on March 11. 
 
 Nearly 7,000 people have been confirmed killed in the double natural disaster, which turned whole towns into waterlogged and debris-shrouded wastelands. 
 
 Another 10,700 people are missing with many feared dead. 
 
 Some 390,000 people, including many among Japan's aging population, are homeless and battling near-freezing temperatures in shelters in northeastern coastal areas. 
 
 Food, water, medicine and heating fuel are in short supply. 
 
 "Everything is gone, including money," said Tsukasa Sato, a 74-year-old barber with a heart condition, as he warmed his hands in front of a stove at a shelter for the homeless. 
 
 Health officials and the U.N. atomic watchdog have said radiation levels in the capital Tokyo were not harmful. But the city has seen an exodus of tourists, expatriates and many Japanese, who fear a blast of radioactive material. 
 
 "I'm leaving because my parents are terrified. I personally think this will turn out to be the biggest paper tiger the world has ever seen," said Luke Ridley, 23, from London as he sat at Narita international airport using his laptop. 
 
 "I'll probably come back in about a month." 
 
 Though there has been alarm around the world, experts have been warning there is little risk of radiation at dangerous levels spreading to other nations. 
 
 The U.S. government said "minuscule" amounts of radiation were detected in California consistent with a release from Japan's damaged facility, but there were no levels of concern. 
 
 Amid their distress, Japanese were proud of the 279 nuclear plant workers toiling in the wreckage, wearing masks, goggles and protective suits sealed by duct tape. 
 
 "My eyes well with tears at the thought of the work they are doing," Kazuya Aoki, a safety official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told Reuters. 
 
 G7 INTERVENTION FOR YEN 
 
 The Group of Seven rich nations succeeded in calming global financial markets in rare concerted intervention to restrain a soaring yen. 
 
 The dollar surged to 81.98 yen on Friday after the G7 moved to pour billions into markets buying dollars, euros and pounds -- the first such joint intervention since the group came to the aid of the newly launched euro in 2000. 
 
 The dollar later dropped back to under 81 yen, but it was still far from the record low of 76.25 yen hit on Thursday. 
 
 "The only type of intervention that actually works is coordinated intervention, and it shows the solidarity of all central banks in terms of the severity of the situation in Japan," said Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT in New York. 
 
 Japan's Nikkei share index ended up 2.7 percent, recouping some of the week's stinging losses. It lost 10.2 percent for the week, wiping $350 billion off market capitalization. 
 
 The plight of the homeless worsened following a cold snap that brought heavy snow to the worst-affected areas. 
 
 Nearly 290,000 households in the north were still without electricity, officials said, and the government said about 940,000 households lacked running water. 
 
 Aid groups say most victims are getting help, but there are pockets of acute suffering. 
 
 "We've seen children suffering with the cold, and lacking really basic items like food and clean water," Stephen McDonald of Save the Children said in a statement on Friday. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Linda Sieg, Nathan Layne, Elaine Lies, Leika Kihara, Jon Herskovitz, Joseph Radford and Chris Gallagher in Japan; Fiona Ortiz in Madrid; Scott DiSavino in New York; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Robert Birsel) ||||| Choppers, trucks douse stricken nuke plant 
 
 By Hayden Cooper, staff 
 
 Updated 
 
 Japan is making a last-ditch attempt to cool stricken reactors at its Fukushima nuclear plant, but efforts so far appear to have had little effect. 
 
 Special military fire trucks unleashed jets of water on a damaged reactor at the quake-hit plant on Thursday, after police were earlier forced to withdraw their own water cannon from the scene due to high levels of radiation. 
 
 While police must be outside to use their vehicle, the military vehicles are built to allow personnel to remain inside. 
 
 As well as water-spraying trucks, four twin-rotor Chinook helicopters from the Japan Self-Defence Forces flew water bombing missions over the plant, emptying tonnes of water onto reactors which have been overheating since being damaged by last Friday's earthquake and tsunami. 
 
 But there are serious doubts the water drops will have any major effect, with the amount of water each chopper drops a fraction of what is needed to fill the pool. 
 
 The focus of the missions appeared to be the No.3 reactor but there have been reports that only two out of the four water drops actually hit their mark, and the missions appeared to have little impact on the radiation levels. 
 
 Part of the reason why the water drops have not been that accurate is that they were not allowed to fly too low because of the radiation levels. 
 
 Defence minister Toshimi Kitazawa said an additional 11 military vehicles would be deployed for efforts to help cool the reactors, while pumps supplied by the US armed forces were also being transferred. 
 
 On Friday, water drops will start above the No.2 reactor, which has been letting off white smoke or steam. 
 
 Tokyo has denied claims that the spent fuel rods in the No. 4 reactor are totally exposed, with cabinet spokesman Yukio Edano saying there is still water inside. 
 
 The plant's operators are desperately trying to restore electricity supply so the cooling system can restart. 
 
 "We cannot tell when, but we want to restore the power source as soon as possible," a spokesman for the plant's operators TEPCO told AFP. 
 
 Japan's foreign ministry spokesman Hidenobu Sobashima says the government is making every possible effort to contain the damage. 
 
 "We are not in a position to comment on whether the concern is unwarranted, but we understand the concern," he said. 
 
 "The government is giving the advice which the government considers appropriate. We hope the international community monitors the situation in a calm manner, as the prime minister appealed to the residents and the people of Japan, to act calmly." 
 
 As the fight for control of the reactors continued, Japan instructed local authorities to start screening food for radioactivity. 
 
 Australians have been told to leave the capital and other areas affected by the ongoing crisis. 
 
 The Department of Foreign Affairs has now widened its recommended exclusion zone for Australians around the Fukushima plant to 80 kilometres. 
 
 Japanese authorities had ordered people within 30 kilometres of the plant to evacuate or stay indoors. 
 
 This afternoon the Federal Government said the number of Australians unaccounted for in Japan had fallen to 20. 
 
 Call for volunteers 
 
 The Japanese government's nuclear safety agency has said the top priority should be pouring water into the fuel-rod pools at reactors three and four, which may be boiling and are not fully covered by roofs that would reduce radiation leaks. 
 
 Employees of TEPCO and other industry firms have volunteered to join efforts to control the escalating crisis, local media said. 
 
 TEPCO put out a call for about 20 volunteers to join the battle to bring the situation under control at the Fukushima No.1 plant, where last week's quake and tsunami knocked out the reactor cooling systems, Jiji Press reported. 
 
 Offers came in from TEPCO employees and others, including a 59-year-old man with four decades of experience working at nuclear power stations for a regional power company who was due to retire in six months, the report said. 
 
 Officials at TEPCO were not immediately available to confirm the reports. 
 
 TEPCO was preparing to restore outside power lines from Tohoku Electric Power Co., which serves the region, and connect its damaged electric transmission system with unaffected lines. 
 
 "At the moment, we are concentrating our efforts on this work," he said. 
 
 "If the restoration work is completed, we will be able to activate various electric pumps and pour water into reactors and pools for spent nuclear fuel." 
 
 The 9.0-magnitude quake, the biggest on record to strike Japan, knocked down electricity pylons which Tohoku had used to supply power to the TEPCO plant. 
 
 Some 70 workers have been using pumps to pour seawater to cool reactors at the plant, according to media reports, using electricity from borrowed mobile generators. 
 
 -ABC/wires 
 
 First posted ||||| YAMAGATA, Japan -- Emergency workers seemed to try everything they could think of Thursday to douse one of Japan's dangerously overheated nuclear reactors: helicopters, heavy-duty fire trucks, even water cannons normally used to quell rioters. But they couldn't be sure any of it was easing the peril at the tsunami-ravaged facility. 
 
 (SCROLL DOWN FOR LIVE UPDATES) 
 
 Three reactors have had at least partial meltdowns, but an even greater danger has emerged. Japanese and U.S. concerns were increasingly focusing on the pools used to store spent nuclear fuel: Some of the pools are dry or nearly empty and the rods could heat up and spew radiation. 
 
 It could take days and "possibly weeks" to get the complex under control, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jazcko said. He defended the U.S. decision to recommend a 50-mile evacuation zone for its citizens, a much stronger measure than Japan has taken. 
 
 A senior official with the U.N.'s nuclear safety agency said there had been "no significant worsening" at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant but that the situation remained "very serious." Graham Andrew told reporters in Vienna that nuclear fuel rods in two reactors were only about half covered with water, and in a third they were also not completely submerged. 
 
 If the fuel is not fully covered, rising temperatures and pressure will increase the chances of complete meltdowns that would release much larger amounts of radioactive material than the failing plant has emitted so far. 
 
 Low levels of radiation have been detected well beyond Tokyo, which is 140 miles (220 kilometers) south of the plant, but hazardous levels have been limited to the plant itself. Still, the crisis triggered by last week's earthquake and tsunami has forced thousands to evacuate and drained Tokyo's normally vibrant streets of life, its residents either leaving town or holing up in their homes. 
 
 President Barack Obama appeared on television to assure Americans that officials do not expect harmful amounts of radiation to reach the U.S. or its territories. He also said the U.S. was offering Japan any help it could provide, and said he was asking for a comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear plant safety. 
 
 Japanese and American assessments of the crisis have differed, with the plant's owner denying Jazcko's report Wednesday that Unit 4's spent fuel pool was dry and that anyone who gets close to the plant could face potentially lethal doses of radiation. But a Tokyo Electric Power Co. executive moved closer to the U.S. position Thursday. 
 
 "Considering the amount of radiation released in the area, the fuel rods are more likely to be exposed than to be covered," Yuichi Sato said. 
 
 Workers have been dumping seawater when possible to control temperatures at the plant since the quake and tsunami knocked out power to its cooling systems, but they tried even more desperate measures on Unit 3's reactor and cooling pool. 
 
 Two Japanese military CH-47 Chinook helicopters began dumping seawater on Unit 3 on Thursday morning, defense ministry spokeswoman Kazumi Toyama said. The choppers doused the reactor with at least four loads of water in just the first 10 minutes, though television footage showed much of it appearing to disperse in the wind. 
 
 Chopper crews flew missions of about 40 minutes each to limit their radiation exposure, passing over the reactor with loads of about 2,000 gallons (7,500 liters) of water. Another 9,000 gallons (35,000 liters) of water were blasted from military trucks with high-pressure sprayers used to extinguish fires at plane crashes, though the vehicles had to stay safely back from areas deemed to have too much radiation. 
 
 Special police units with water cannons were also tried, but they could not reach the targets from safe distances and had to pull back, said Yasuhiro Hashimoto, a spokesman for Japan's nuclear safety agency. 
 
 Unit 3's reactor uses a fuel that combines plutonium, better known as an ingredient in nuclear weapons, and reprocessed uranium. The presence of this mixed oxide fuel, or MOX, means potentially that two very harmful radioactive products could be released into the environment. 
 
 Tokyo Electric Power said it believed workers were making headway in staving off a catastrophe both with the spraying and, especially, with efforts to complete an emergency power line to restart the plant's own electric cooling systems. 
 
 "This is a first step toward recovery," said Teruaki Kobayashi, a facilities management official at the power company. He said radiation levels "have somewhat stabilized at their lows" and that some of the spraying had reached its target, with one reactor emitting steam. 
 
 "We are doing all we can as we pray for the situation to improve," Kobayashi said. Authorities planned to spray again Friday, and Kobayashi said: "Choices are limited. We just have to stick to what we can do most quickly and efficiently." 
 
 Work on connecting the new power line to the plant was expected to begin Friday and take 10 to 15 hours, said Nuclear Safety Agency spokesman Minoru Ohgoda. But the utility is not sure the cooling systems will still function. If they don't, electricity won't help. 
 
 Four of the plant's six reactors have seen fires, explosions, damage to the structures housing reactor cores, partial meltdowns or rising temperatures. Officials also recently said temperatures are rising even in the spent fuel pools of the other two reactors. 
 
 The troubles at the nuclear complex were set in motion by last Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which knocked out power and destroyed backup generators needed for the reactors' cooling systems. That added a nuclear crisis on top of twin natural disasters that likely killed well more than 10,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. 
 
 Mario V. Bonaca, a physicist sits on an advisory committee to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said he believes the focus of the effort has shifted to the spent fuel pools. "I understand that they've controlled the cooling of the cores," said Bonaca, who said he was basing his understanding on NRC and industry sources. 
 
 The storage pools need a constant source of cooling water. Even when removed from reactors, uranium rods are still extremely hot and must be cooled for months, possibly longer, to prevent them from heating up again and emitting radioactivity. 
 
 While a core team of 180 emergency workers has been rotating in and out of the complex to avoid exposure, experts said that anyone working close to the reactors was almost certainly being exposed to radiation levels that could, at least, give them much higher cancer risks. 
 
 Experts note, though, that radiation levels drop quickly with distance from the complex. While elevated radiation has been detected well outside the evacuation zone, experts say those levels are not dangerous. 
 
 U.S. officials were taking no chances. In Washington, the State Department warned U.S. citizens to consider leaving the country and offered voluntary evacuation to family members and dependents of U.S. personnel in the cities of Tokyo, Yokohama and Nagoya. 
 
 The first flight left Thursday, with fewer than 100 people onboard, Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy said. Plans also call for airlifting several thousand family members of U.S. armed forces personnel as well as nonessential staff stationed in Japan in the coming days. 
 
 The U.S. evacuation zone is far bigger than that established by Japan, which has called for a 12-mile zone and has told those within 20 miles to stay indoors. Daniel B. Poneman, U.S. deputy secretary of energy, said at the briefing that his agency agreed with the 50-mile zone - but said Japan's measures were also prudent. 
 
 Nearly a week after the earthquake and tsunami, police said more than 452,000 people were staying in schools and other shelters, as supplies of fuel, medicine and other necessities ran short. Both victims and aid workers appealed for more help, as the chances of finding more survivors dwindled. 
 
 Noriko Sawaki lives in a battered neighborhood in Sendai that is still without running water and food or gasoline supplies and that, she said, makes life exhausting. "It's frustrating, because we don't have a goal, something to strive for. This just keeps on going," said the 48-year-old. 
 
 In the town of Kesennuma, people lined up to get into a supermarket after a delivery of key supplies, such as instant rice packets and diapers. 
 
 Each person was only allowed to buy 10 items, NHK television reported. 
 
 With diapers hard to find in many areas, an NHK program broadcast a how-to session on fashioning a diaper from a plastic shopping bag and a towel. ||||| U.S. officials are alarmed at how the Japanese are handling the escalating nuclear reactor crisis and fear that if they do not get control of the plants within the next 24 to 48 hours they could have a situation that will be "deadly for decades." 
 
 "It would be hard to describe how alarming this is right now," one U.S. official told ABC News. 
 
 President Obama has been briefed by nuclear experts. 
 
 The Japanese have evacuated most of the reactor personnel from the Fukushima nuclear complex and are rotating teams of 50 workers through the facility in an attempt to cool it down. 
 
 "We are all-out urging the Japanese to get more people back in there to do emergency operation there, that the next 24 to 48 hours are critical," the official said. "Urgent efforts are needed on the part of the Japanese to restore emergency operations to cool" down the reactors' rods before they trigger a meltdown. 
 
 "They need to stop pulling out people—and step up with getting them back in the reactor to cool it. There is a recognition this is a suicide mission," the official said. 
 
 The official said the United States is in very deep consultations with Japanese about the way forward and that the only thing that has been favorable is the wind pattern that is blowing the contaminated material out to sea instead south towards Tokyo and other populated areas, but that can't be counted upon. 
 
 The U.S. official says experts believe there is a rupture in two, maybe three of the six reactors at the Fukushima power plant, but as worrisome is the fact that spent fuel rods are now exposed to the air, which means that substances like cesium, which have a long half-life, could become airborne. 
 
 "That could be deadly for decades," the official said. 
 
 There is a growing concern around the world that a nuclear catastrophic disaster is in the works. 
 
 "There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen," European Union's energy commissioner Günther Oettinger said today, according to various reports. "Practically everything is out of control. I cannot exclude the worst in the hours and days to come." 
 
 The United States has instituted a 50-mile evacuation zone for U.S. forces and American citizens from the Fukushima power plant, four times the size of Japan's 12-mile evacuation zone. Only exceptions that are made are for relief missions. 
 
 "Recently the NRC made a recommendation that based on the available information that we have, that for a comparable situation in the United States, we would recommend an evacuation to a much larger radius than has currently been provided in Japan," Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Greg Jaczko said at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee. 
 
 Jaczko said of the four plants that are endangered at the Fukushima site, there has been a hydrogen explosion at one unit and secondary containment has been destroyed. 
 
 "We believe radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact ability to take corrective measures," he said. 
 
 U.S. analysis show that some of the radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant has drifted northward and out to sea, officials say, but the country is hardly clear of danger. 
 
 U.S. Fears Japan's Crisis Could Be Worse Than Chernobyl 
 
 Thousands of people flocked to Tokyo's Narita Airport today amid rising concerns of a radioactive fallout. 
 
 The head of the U.S. Department of Energy said today that the nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan could be worse than the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania that dampened Americans' view of nuclear power plants for decades to come. 
 
 "Events unfolding in the Japan incidents appear to be more serious than Three Mile Island. To what extent, we don't know that. They are unfolding hour by hour," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said earlier today at the hearing. 
 
 Chu's assessment is in line with views expressed by many experts, some of whom even believe the Japan crisis could be worse than the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine that left hundreds sick and killed several from radiation. 
 
 The United States has deployed thousands of military and civilian staff to assist the Japanese in dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake and the resulting tsunami, which has killed thousands. 
 
 To date there have been 113 helicopter missions and 125 fixed wing missions. More than 129,000 pounds of water and 4,200 pounds of food have been delivered . 
 
 The Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sent teams of U.S. experts to assess the nuclear situation. 
 
 U.S. aid to Japan has reached nearly $5.9 million, with total planned assistance amounting to $8 million. USAID says the primary humanitarian needs on the ground remain food, safe drinking water, blankets, medical supplies, fuel, and sanitation infrastructure. 
 
 ABC News' Huma Khan and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
– Japan is considering burying its troubled nuclear plant in sand and concrete—the same move made in Chernobyl 25 years ago, Reuters reports. “It is not impossible to encase the reactors in concrete. But our priority right now is to try and cool them down first,” said an official, as authorities work to restore power. Smoke has been rising from the No. 2 reactor at the plant, and authorities aren’t sure of the cause—though it may be linked to the explosion there Tuesday, notes the AP. New damage has been discovered in the fuel pool at the plant’s No. 4 reactor, hampering cooling efforts to refill it with water (click for more on the alarming situation). US data-collecting flights suggest that radiation hasn’t expanded outside a 19-mile area—but Japan has raised its threat level from 4 to 5 out of 7, pointing to danger that extends beyond the local. The crisis could continue for weeks, said a US official. Meanwhile, the Huffington Post notes, authorities are using every cooling method available, from fire trucks to water cannons.