'They've lost control': French claim Japan is hiding full scale of nuclear disaster as TWO more reactors heat up

- Workers battling nuclear meltdown briefly evacuated today after radiation levels increased

- French minister: 'Let's not beat about the bush, they've essentially lost control'

- Officials commandeer police water cannon to spray complex

- Attempts to dump water on reactors by helicopter fail

- Concern at radioactive steam leaking from reactor number three

- Two more previously stable reactors begin to heat up

'Out of control': This dramatic pictures shows radioactive steam pouring from the Fukushima reactor number three after it was damaged in an explosion


Destroyed: the four stricken reactors at Fukushima. Three were damaged in explosion while a fire broke out at the fourth


Japan's stricken nuclear power plant was abandoned for hours today, as soaring radiation forced emergency workers to flee for their lives and authorities were reduced to spraying reactors with police water cannons.

All 50 emergency workers who had been fighting to keep overheating reactors cool were this morning pulled back 500 yards from the complex as radiation levels became too dangerous.

And in an extraordinary attack, the French government accused the Japanese of losing control of the situation and hiding the full scale of the disaster.


Destroyed: Damage after the earthquake and tsunami at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, is seen in this satellite image taken 9:35 am local time (0035 GMT)


Desperate measures: A Japanese military helicopter scoops water from the Pacific, which it later attempted to drop on overheating reactors


Military helicopters made a failed attempt to drop water on the reactors from above, amid desperate efforts to cool nuclear fuel. The helicopter missions are said to have failed because radiation levels put the crews in danger. Police water cannons usually used in riot control were even requested to spray the site.

The emergency teams had been pumping sea water into reactors using fire engines, but those efforts are thought to have stopped as the workers were pulled out. But Japanese officials said 180 workers were now back on the site.



Stricken: the diagram shows all six stricken reactors. Reactors one to four have been over-heating since the tsumani. But reactors five and six, on a separate part of the site today began heating up as well


Nuclear experts said the solutions being proposed to quell radiation leaks at the complex were last-ditch efforts to stem what could well be remembered as one of the world's worst industrial disasters.

'This is a slow-moving nightmare,' said Dr Thomas Neff, a physicist and uranium-industry analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The biggest concerns centre around the four over-heating reactors, and in particular radioactive steam pouring out of the plutonium-fuelled reactor number three which exploded on Monday.