The Fukushima nuclear crisis reached the highest level corresponding to the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. Ever-increasing radiation provokes the government to widen the evacuation areas as after shocks continue to shake the nation’s main island of Honshu.

The catastrophe at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi station was earlier rated 5 on the global scale, the same as the 1979 partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano confirmed this level upgrade as the maximum on the international scale.

Situated at about 220 kilometers north of Tokyo, the wrecked nuclear plant, is leaking radiation at 10,000 terabecquerels per hour for several hours following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. This caused the Fukushima incident the maximum rating on the scale formed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Philip White who is an international liaison officer at the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center said, “The Japanese government is at last beginning to wake up to the reality of the scale of the disaster. Its belated move to evacuate people from a larger area around the nuclear plant, likewise, is recognition that the impact on public health is potentially much greater than it first acknowledged.”

The Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center is a Tokyo-based group opposed to atomic energy.

The coast of Chiba, east of Tokyo experienced a magnitude-6.2 earthquake at 8:08 in the morning today. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, although buildings swayed in the capital, no aftershock damage was reported.