Japan's earthquake-stricken nuclear facilities are unlikely to suffer the kind of catastrophic accident that occurred in Chernobyl 25 years ago, the Japanese director-general of the U.N.'s nuclear agency said Monday.
The design and structure of Japanese nuclear power plants are different from the Soviet-era facility where an April 26, 1986, explosion blew the roof off the northern Ukrainian complex's No. 4 reactor, unleashing a radiation cloud that swept across Europe and around the world.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano told journalists in Vienna, where the U.N. agency has its headquarters, that it was "unlikely" that the situation at three reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex would escalate into a Chernobyl scenario.
Photos: Scenes of earthquake destruction
The agency also said on its website that Japanese authorities have reported "decreasing coolant levels" in the reactor core of the No. 2 reactor and that plant operators have begun injecting seawater to maintain cooling of the reactor core.
