A handout photo shows (from L-R) reactors No. 1, 2, 3 and 4 at Tokyo Electric Power Co. Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in northern Japan March 15, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

A RARE ADDRESS

Tuesday brought worse news: blasts in two of the reactors and a fire in a third at Fukushima as water levels in a pool used to store spent fuel dropped sharply. Radiation levels in the plant soared so high at one point that workers were pulled out of the control room.

Little is known about the skeletal crew that has battled to bring the plant under control. Even Japanese media have not identified any of the 200 or so workers involved.

"What is clear is that those working there are receiving radiation and should be treated as heroes," Javier Dies, head of nuclear engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Barcelona told Reuters.

The sense of dread grew almost by the hour. In Tokyo on Tuesday, radiation levels shot to 10 times normal levels, a worrying elevation if not yet a level that would cause acute radiation problems.

A radiation dosimeter indicates 0.6 microsieverts in Shibuya, Tokyo, on Tuesday March 15, 2011, after an earthquake and tsunami hit northern Japan. [Photo/Agencies]

Prime Minister Naoto Kan appeared in a televised news briefing to urge people living up to 30 km (19 miles) from the reactor to stay indoors. The Bank of Japan pumped eight trillion yen ($102 billion) into the jittery financial system after a record 15 trillion yen injection on Monday.

As bulldozers begin clearing an emergency route to the Fukushima nuclear plant to allow access for fire trucks, the country's reclusive Emperor Akihito delivered a rare address to the Japanese people, offering his concern about the scale of the crisis. In his televised Wednesday statement Akihito said he was deeply worried and asked people to treat each other with "compassion" during a crisis he called "unprecedented in scale."

Coming in a week of mass evacuations and dwindling food on store shelves, the emperor's address reminded older Japanese of the end of World War Two when a recorded message from Akihito's father had marked the surrender.

Though the sense of helplessness is hardly as profound as it was then, the impact of last week's disaster is already profound. After the Kobe earthquake in 1995, Japan refused offers of help from the United States. This time around, Tokyo welcomed offers of help early. On the day Akihito made his address, the government even said it might have to seek direct US military intervention in the crisis.

People watch a television broadcasting Japan's Emperor Akihito's televised address to the nation at an electronics retail store in Tokyo March 16, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]