In his televised address on Tuesday, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced that radiation had spread from the three damaged reactors in the plant. He has asked people living within 30 kilometers of the Fukushima complex to stay indoors to avoid potential health risks from radiation.
"We are making every effort possible so that no further explosion, or no further leakage of radioactive material, would happen," the Japanese prime minister told journalists at a news conference. "The people at the power plant are carrying out an operation to inject water to cool the reactors, despite their putting themselves in a very dangerous situation. So in that sense, we hope that we can avoid further radiation leakage."