[Skete]

Wind to blow south at quake-hit plant, unlikely to reach

TOKYO | Mon Mar 14, 2011 4:41am EDT

TOKYO (Reuters) - The wind over a quake-damaged nuclear complex in northeast Japan, where low levels of radiation have been released, will blow south later on Monday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, but is not expected to affect Tokyo.
It will blow in the general direction of the capital, but will be slow and the direction typically changes at slow speeds.
The Fukushima Daiichi plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), is about 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo on the country's northeast coast.
Engineers were battling to avert a meltdown at three stricken reactors in the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, triggered by Friday's quake and tsunami.
Low-level radiation has been detected outside the plant but at very low levels. These levels would need to rise something like a thousand times before real fears of contamination are justified, experts say.
A 20-km (12-mile) evacuation zone has been set up around the plant.
An explosion at a reactor at the plant on Monday is unlikely to have led to a large escape of radioactivity, the government said.
Japan's nuclear safety agency, quoting a report from the facility's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, said radiation near the No. 3 reactor about 40 minutes after the explosion was about one-50th of that considered critical to human health.
(Reporting by Junko Fujita; Editing by Nick Macfie and Sanjeev Miglani)
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72D25U20110314