Japan nuclear crisis worse than feared: US

Senior US officials have warned that the Fukushima nuclear emergency is far more serious than the Japanese government has acknowledged, as America moves to bolster Japan's faltering response and avoid a full-scale meltdown.

As radiation continued to pour from at least two of the four badly damaged reactors yesterday, the Obama administration authorised the first evacuations of Americans from Japan, while the Pentagon prepared plans to protect its 40,000 troops stationed in the country from a possible nuclear meltdown.

In a detailed assessment of the crisis to US congress, the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory Jaczko, suggested the situation was far more serious than the Japanese had publicly acknowledged and warned that radiation levels at the plant had become "extremely high".

Read more