Vienna – Japan upgraded the rating of events at its Fukushima 1 nuclear plant to an ‘accident with wider consequences’ on Friday, according to official messages sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

Rating the accident at level 5 of the 7-step INES scale puts it on the same level as the one at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979, where the core was severely damaged.

Japan’s previous rating was level 4, an ‘accident with local consequences.’

Monsters and Critics