Fukushima: Lack of transparency worries experts

Tokyo: With events over the past 12 hours moving at a fast pace and revealing a steady worsening of the nuclear crisis, questions are now being asked as to how transparent Japanese authorities are being in disseminating information about the situation as it prevails at Fukushima nuclear park? Suspicions are growing that the crisis may snowball into something that may eventually rank just behind the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

The IAEA is ranking the emergency at 4, on a scale of 1-7 in an ascending order of crisis. A Level 4 ranking indicates an ''accident with local consequences''.

Experts agree that in a fast moving situation such as this it is very likely that information may become redundant even as it is released for public dissemination. Also, in a crisis with global ramifications, such as that inflicts Japan now, it may be prudent to proceed with caution and desist from painting one panic-stricken scenario after another.

But experts are also agreed that information released by Japanese authorities and the power plant operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), has not been clear enough for them to grasp the seriousness of the emergency.

It is now being reported that prime minister Naoto Kan had to storm into a meeting of executives from TEPCO at 5.30am on Tuesday to find out what was going on? His arrival at the meeting underlined the fact that Japan's prime minister was unaware of the true situation as it prevailed at Fukushima.

On Saturday the first blast occurred even as Kan was explaining the situation at Fukushima to opposition politicians. He had no knowledge of the blast and the information was conveyed to him only an hour or so after the event had already taken place.