rise. one official in the north saying he expects the death toll to be in the tens of thousands. the other emergency going on at two separate nuclear plants in the area around foukushima to te south of where i am, two emergency situations at nuclear plants. authorities believe there has been at least -- they believe there has been a meltdown in one of the reactors at one of the plants, but it is simply too hot at this point for them to be able to confirm that. they're working on cooling it down by pumping in sea water, a very unusual development. we'll have a lot about that in the two hours that we're broadcasting ahead. they've evacuated an area of some 20 kilometers, about 12 miles, around one of those plants in fukushima. evacuated some 200,000 people, 160 people so far have been exposed to some level of radiation. they are still checking more people. we of course have correspondents spanned out over all the regions here in japan. soledad o'brien is about an hour's drive north from sendai. we'll talk to her momentarily