Japanese nuclear crisis now ranked a six
The nuclear crisis in Japan is nor ranked a six on the International Nuclear Event Scale. This is a logarithmic scale, where each level is around 10 times worse than the level below.
Their levels are:
- Anomaly
- Incident
- Serious Incident
- Accident With Local Consequences
- Accident With Wider Consequences
- Serious Accident
- Major Accident
Initially the situation in Japan was a two, and then a four. It is now just one off the most serious – which has only been Chernobyl to date. Three Mile Island was a five.
Level six impact is described as “Significant release of radioactive material likely to require implementation of planned countermeasures”. Level seven is “Major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures”.
Hopefully the worst outcome can be avoided.