Engineers and workers at the damage wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant are pumping nitrogen into a reactor to prevent possible explosion, which could be the worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.

This after United States (US) atomic watch said a pressure vessel may have been ruptured. Consequently, the report stirred atomic safety debate and inspections in US.

The Japanese staff started injecting nitrogen into the containment vessel of reactor number 1 hours before daybreak today.

Yoshinori Mori, spokesman of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said, "It is necessary to inject nitrogen gas into the containment vessel and eliminate the potential for a hydrogen explosion." Mori suspected that the outer casing of the reactor vessel was severely damaged which caused it to leak.

On the other hand, he assured that possibility of another hydrogen explosion from reactors number 1 and number 3, which were damaged earlier in the catastrophe, is unlikely to happen. Thus, spreading high levels of radiation in to the air is “extremely low”, the official reported.

TEPCO, the operator of the station at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear plant, plans to continue the process in six days and infuse gas into the numbers 2 and 3 units to wash out hydrogen and oxygen and prevent explosions that would obstruct efforts to cool the reactors.

In lieu with this, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama declared, “There is no immediate danger of a hydrogen explosion.”

The earthquake and tsunami caused a total of 27,631 dead and missing Japanese nationwide as of 8 p.m. local time yesterday, according to the reports of National Police Agency.