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FUKUSHIMA, Japan, March 13 - Japan fought on Sunday to avert a meltdown at two earthquake-crippled nuclear reactors, describing the massive quake and tsunami, which may have killed more than 10,000 people, as the nation's biggest crisis since World War Two.
The world's third-largest economy is struggling to respond to a disaster of epic proportions, with more than 1 million without water or power and whole towns wiped off the map.
"The earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear incident have been the biggest crisis Japan has encountered in the 65 years since the end of World War II," a grim-faced Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a news conference.
"We're under scrutiny on whether we, the Japanese people, can overcome this crisis."
As he spoke, officials worked desperately to stop fuel rods in the damaged reactors from overheating, which could in turn melt the container that houses the core, or even explode, releasing radioactive material into the wind.
The government said a building housing a second reactor at the same complex was at risk of exploding after a blast blew the roof off the first the day before. The complex is 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.
The No. 1 reactor is 40 years old and was originally scheduled to go out of commission in February but had its operating license extended another 10 years. But Kan said the crisis was not another Chernobyl, referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster.
"Radiation has been released in the air, but there are no reports that a large amount was released," Jiji news agency quoted him as saying. "This is fundamentally different from the Chernobyl accident."
Nevertheless, France recommended its citizens leave the Tokyo region, citing the risk of further earthquakes and uncertainty about the nuclear plants.
Broadcaster NHK, quoting a police official, said more than 10,000 people may have been killed as the wall of water triggered by Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake surged across the coastline, reducing whole towns to rubble.
Almost two million households were without power in the freezing north, the government said. There were about 1.4 million without running water.
Kyodo news agency said about 300,000 people were evacuated nationwide, many seeking refuge in shelters, wrapped in blankets, some clutching each other sobbing.
Authorities have set up a 20-km (12-mile) exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and a 10 km (6 miles) zone around another nuclear facility close by. Around 140,000 people have been moved from the area, while authorities prepared to distribute iodine to protect people from radioactive exposure.
The nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl, sparked criticism that authorities were ill-prepared for such a massive quake and the threat that could pose to the country's nuclear power industry.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said there might have been a partial meltdown of the fuel rods at the No. 1 reactor at Fukushima. Engineers were pumping in seawater, trying to prevent the same happening at the No. 3 reactor, he said in apparent acknowledgement they had moved too slowly on Saturday.
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