1800 GMT, 18 March 2011 Zena Iovino, reporter Japan has raised
the accident level at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant
to 5 on an international scale of 7, according to the Kyodo news
agency and NHK. The partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in
1979 also ranked as a level 5. But there was some good news. The
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday that
the situation at reactors 1, 2 and 3 appears to remain fairly
stable. The spent-fuel ponds at units 3 and 4, however, remain
an important safety concern. Reliable, validated information is
still lacking on water levels and temperatures at the spent fuel
ponds, but the IAEA announced on Friday that prior to the
earthquake, The entire fuel core of reactor unit 4 of the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant had been unloaded from the
reactor and placed in the spent fuel pond located in the
reactor's building. This would explain the fear yesterday that
the spent fuel in the unit 4 pond could go critical (see 1820
GMT, 16 March update, below