Race against time

That's how Yukiya Amano, the head of UN's nuclear watchdog IAEA, has described Japan's battle to stabilise a crippled nuclear plant

Race against time

That's how Yukiya Amano, the head of UN's nuclear watchdog IAEA, has described Japan's battle to stabilise a crippled nuclear plant

"This is a very grave and serious accident," the International Atomic Energy Agency chief said after meeting Naoto Kan, Japan's prime minister.

"So it is important that the international community, including the IAEA, handles this jointly. Especially cooling (the reactors) is extremely important, so I think it is a race against time."

Amano's comments came as a battalion of workers took on the most dangerous job in Japan, if not the world.

Three hundred workers toiled in Tokyo Electric Power's earthquake-smashed plant, wearing masks, goggles and protective suits whose seams are sealed off with duct tape to prevent radioactive particles from creeping in.

They are working to restore power and cooling systems to the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi and try to avert what could be the biggest nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl in 1986.

"My eyes well up with tears at the thought of the work they are doing," Kazuya Aoki, a safety official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said. "We all just want to support them, and help them do a solid job."

Safety agency and company officials won't say more about who the workers are or what, specifically, they are doing.

"They are taking such a risk for us, I can only be full of deep gratitude," said Tokyo resident Kumiko Tanaka, 73, who was taking a walk in the park after lunch.

"I don't know who they are, but I'm praying for them," she said. "When they're finished, I think they will be heroes."

Level 5 crisis

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency raised the level for the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Friday fromu00a0 4 to 5 putting it on par with the 1979 incident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island.

According to the International Nuclear Events Scale, a level 5 equates to the likelihood of a release of radioactive material, several deaths from radiation and severe damage to a reactor core.

The Chernobyl nuclear accident in the former Soviet Union, for example, rated a 7 on the scale, while Japan's other nuclear crisis a 1999 accident at Tokaimura in which workers died after being exposed to radiation was a 4.

The partial meltdown of a reactor core at Three Mile Island was deemed the worst nuclear accident in US history.

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