White smoke seen billowing from Japan power plant

No. 2 reactor at Japan's Fukushima plant, designed to contain radioactive debris, is 'no longer sealed,' Andre-Claude Lacoste, head of France's Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), said. -- PHOTO: AP

TOKYO - JAPANESE television pictures showed white smoke billowing from a quake-crippled nuclear power plant in north-eastern Japan on Wednesday.

Japan was trying to avert a catastrophe after fire broke out at the plant that has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo, prompting some people to flee the capital and triggering growing international alarm. Fire crews were fighting a new blaze at reactor number four at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) said.

'We are battling the fire now,' a spokesman said. The government later said the fire was under control. Explosions and an earlier fire at the plant had unleashed dangerous levels of radiation on Tuesday, sparking a collapse on the stock market and panic buying in supermarkets.

The prospect of a meltdown sent stocks and commodity prices plunging around the globe, as markets feared the crippling effects on the world's third-largest economy. In Japanese towns and cities, fearful citizens stripped shelves of food and water, prompting the government to warn that panic buying could hurt its ability to provide aid to areas devastated by Friday's massive quake and tsunami.

But scared Tokyo residents filled outbound trains and rushed to shops to stock up on face masks and emergency supplies amid heightening fears of radiation headed their way. Radiation levels around the Fukushima No.1 plant on the eastern coast had 'risen considerably', Prime Minister Naoto Kan said, and his chief spokesman announced it had reached the point where it endangered human health.

In Tokyo, 250km to the south-west, authorities also said that higher-than-normal but not harmful radiation levels had been detected in the capital, the world's biggest urban area. Mr Kan warned people living up to 10km beyond a 20km exclusion zone around the nuclear plant to stay indoors. -- AFP, REUTERS