Meteorlogical Situation News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

That update, live from tokyo. it is rapidly becoming a critical situation near the epicenter of the quake. >> paula is in sendai, one of the most damaged cities. what are you seeing right now? >> reporter: just a little earlier, we went down to the port area that was badly damaged. buildings are still standing and that's significant. cars and trucks have been brought back a half mile to three quarters of a mile inland. some smashed into pieces, some resting on top of each other. others wrapped around electricity pile ones. trucks smashed into buildings. there was a fair bit of destruction at t...

Water, electricity are out. the devastation is almost unbelievable. a tsunami more than 23 feet high washed over the japanese coastline traveling six miles inland. this is the largest quake in history to hit japan. the seventh largest worldwide. we have correspondents in japan now to bring you everything you need to know about this story. in a couple minutes the latest from sendai, the city of a million people. >> first, we are watching a dangerous situation with two nuclear plants damaged by the quake. the cooling system for three of four reactors at another plant failed. stan grant has been ...

We are looking to see exactly what the extent of the injuries will be. this has raised concern -- radioactive material is released into the air. the government admitted today some radioactive material has been released into the air. they are saying a low-level and no threat to anyone. the exclusion zone is steadily increased. first a mile or so, then six miles it is doubled to over 13 miles, 20 kilometers. an indication of the concern of the situation they are monitoring hour-by-hour. >> stan, since yesterday, we have been talking about the problems with the cooling systems. so, if it's not fi...

Now stan grant has been talking with japan's nuclear agency. he joins us live from tokyo. what is the status of that system? >> reporter: we are really getting into unchartered territory here. the government called it a nuclear state of emergency. look at the chronology. we had the massive quake yesterday. then it shut down as they normally do in a situation like that. then it xexasperated it. the steam was coming off earlier. some radioactivity material was released with the steam. first it was a mile, then it was stretched to 10 kilometers. now it's doubled. they are talking 12 miles, 20

Indeed. we have to recall the situation back in 1986 when the soviet union was denying there was an accident at the reactor station. after four days, monitors in europe were picking up an entire forest of nuclides. they included three candidates for a serious core melt accident. all of these nuclides were showing up, scattered around. that's the sign that we really have got to the point where we are melting down. >> i'm so sorry to interpret you. we want to go to the japanese prime minister who is speaking.