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Cool the plant down and that is why they've made the decision to flood it with sea water and boric acid. and there is a last line of defense here. to protect the environment and the people in the surrounding area. and that is -- that reactor is surrounded by a containment vessel. a concrete reinforced steel -- a bubble around the plant that is supposed to protect it. in case there is a full melt down. now, you will remember back during the -- we had the chernobyl disaster and they didn't have' containment vessel and you had the material explode and be distributed by the airstream, three mile i...

That was the good news. they say it was an outer wall, and the roof of the building, that's where the explosion actually happened, no harmful substances were released into the atmosphere. in fact, they say radiation has been slowly coming down throughout the day. but, of course, as you say, they have increased this exclusion zone. that's been interesting too, john. you can almost track this crisis through the exclusion zone itself. initially it was a mile, mile and a half, then extended to six miles, now it's up to 12, 13 miles, 20 kilometers. so that really goes to show as time has gone on, t...

Boric acid to try to cool it all down, is that a good idea? >> it's hard to say. i imagine their judgment is this is the only tool left in their tool kit, but it -- sea water, with all the salt it contains, can be extremely corrosive to equipment, especially at high temperatures, so i expect this is a last ditch effort to cool the core, but it will ultimately destroy most of the reactor. >> very quickly, what if that doesn't work? >> if that doesn't work, then we'll be faced with further core melting and a larger radiological release to the environment and more countermeasures will have to be ...

It's not just the one plant that we've been focusing on. we have another plant next to it and then two other plants at a site nearby. so this is a growing issue here. now, as to the issue of the meltdown, it's unclear which of the two plants the government is referring to. earlier today, they put seawater and bo and boric acid into it. now we're getting reports that -- if they're pouring seawater in there and it's not cooling, then that would seem to suggest that there might be a leak. if that's the case, this just gets more and more complicated. >> hold on a second, jim. i want to continue th...

The latest. a red alert with reports of another reactor possibly having an issue. japan the third largest producer of nuclear power. how many reactors are being talking about and how significant is right turn alert? >> there is seert of alerts. first alert came when they evacuated people out about two or three kilometers. that is when the cooling system shut down of the first reactor the one that is having the most problems. then today unfortunately the cooling system of two additional reactors that are in separate location but nearby they went down. this problem is again repeating itself. big...