Renewed public concern

Meanwhile, nuclear safety worries are rising. Authorities in both Russia and China, Japan's two biggest neighbors, have been closely monitoring radiation levels along their shores.

China intensified its monitoring in Beijing and the 11 coastal provinces after Saturday's explosion. The data showed that by Sunday evening, China had not been affected, according to the Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Experts at State Nuclear Power Technology Corp Ltd agreed unanimously Sunday morning that, if information from Japan were accurate, the crisis would have "far less catastrophic effect" even at its worst than the explosion and fire at Chernobyl though it could be more disastrous than the partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979.

The incident will have "minimal effect" on China, the experts wrote in an internal assessment that was submitted to the National Nuclear Safety Administration, said an insider who requested anonymity because no official announcement had been made.

Moving ahead?

In recent years, the United States and other countries have announced plans to increase investment in nuclear power with the aim of reducing dependence on fossil fuels. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday announced a safety inspection of the country's 17 nuclear power plants and called for a special European Union-level summit after an emergency meeting with cabinet members.

The government decided last year to extend the lifespan of the plants, which had been running for an average 12 years beyond their original shutdown dates.

Italy is the only G8 industrialized nation that does not produce nuclear power, but its prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, wants to generate a quarter of the country's electricity from nuclear in the future. That plan will proceed, Fabrizio Cicchitto, a leader of Berlusconi's PDL party, said over the weekend.

In the UK, the London-based Guardian newspaper reported, many in government and the private energy sector worry that nuclear disaster will affect plans to build 10 nuclear power stations to replace aging reactors.

China, the world's second largest energy consumer, also plans to boost nuclear power out of pressure to reduce its reliance on coal and to curb the growth of carbon emissions. Draft development plans for the next five years call for nuclear plants with a total installed capacity of 40 gigawatts by 2015, up from its current 10.8 gigawatts at 13 operating reactors.

"China will not change its determination and plan to develop nuclear power," Zhang Lijun, the vice-minister of environmental protection, said Saturday in Beijing.

Chen Zhanghua, an expert from China National Committee on Nuclear Safety, said Sunday on his micro blog: "The most direct consequence of the Japan incident . . . would be enhanced security standards for the nuclear power industry, to shore up defenses against even the most devastating natural disasters."

Pros and cons

Proponents of nuclear power say its public safety risks are no stronger than those for fossil fuels. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were the only major accidents in 14,000 reactor-years of commercial operation in 32 countries over five decades, the World Nuclear Association said.

Nuclear engineers believed that with enough redundancy built into plant safety systems, risks such as natural disasters can be warded off. Proponents also say that nuclear power produces virtually no conventional air pollution, qualifying it as "clean energy".

Opponents worry about the complexity of design and engineering of nuclear plants. Any failure or operation error could lead to catastrophic consequences, they say. Radioactive substances, if dispersed, pose a direct radiation hazard, can contaminate soil and vegetation, and be ingested by humans and animals.

The management of spent fuel - its transportation and storage - also poses safety risks because it is still highly radioactive with devastating environmental potential.

Duan Yan, Li Jing, Qin Jize, Li Lianxing, Hu Yinan and agencies contributed to this story.

Reuters

Authorities in protective gear stand next to people from the evacuation area near the Fukushima II nuclear plant in Koriyama on Sunday. The Japanese government was preparing to distribute iodine to protect people from radioactive exposure. Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters