Japan Nuke Crisis Raised to Chernobyl Level

Japan has decided to raise the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster from 5 to 7, according to government sources, a severity level only previously seen in Chernobyl, reports Kyodo News. The country's Nuclear Safety Commission today found that at times after the breach, the plant was emitting some 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials an hour. That number is now 1 terabecquerel, but raising the severity level is an indicator of the total radiation that escaped from the plant. The previous Level 5 was the same as the Three Mile Island disaster. (More 9.0 earthquake stories.)