Japanese government raises Fukushima accident level to worst

Japan has assigned the maximum severity level to the nuclear accident at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, matching it with the Chernobyl disaster, a spokesman for Japan's Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said on the national TV on Tuesday, according to RIA Novosti.

The maximum, seventh level on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) is described as a "major event" and leads to "a major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects." So far, it has been assigned only to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The Fukushima disaster was earlier classed as a category five event, or an "accident with wider consequences," which leads to a "limited release of radioactive material."

The agency reported on Monday that the plant has been releasing 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactivity per hour during an unidentified period, which is an official benchmark for a category seven event.