Japan quake aftermath -- Live Report March 19

March 19 (Beijing Time)

Good morning from the live update desk of chinadaily.com.cn. Here are the latest developments in the enduring nuclear crisis in Japan:

04:02 am

General Electric Co has had engineers in Japan helping to bring the Fukushima reactors under control since an earthquake and tsunami struck a week ago, a GE spokesman said on Friday.

03:35 am

Exhausted engineers successfully attached a power cable to Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear station on Saturday in a race to prevent deadly radiation from an accident now rated at least as bad as America's Three Mile Island in 1979.

03:30 am

The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will convene a meeting at its headquarters in Vienna on Monday to brief UN member states on the nuclear emergency in Japan, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said here on Friday.

02:43 am

A US lawmaker on Friday called on the top US nuclear regulator to provide daily briefings assessing the nuclear crisis in Japan to ensure the public is getting accurate assessments of the conditions on the ground.

02:20 am

Dangerous radiation has the potential of spewing uncontrollably from open-air pools storing spent nuclear fuel at Japan's crippled Fukushima power plant, according to a US expert.

01:55 am

Harmless traces of Japan's nuclear accident may reach Europe in a week's time, part of a normally ignored background of radiation whose effects include a premium for pre-1945 steel such as in old shipwrecks.

01:10 am

Sirens wailed Friday along a devastated coastline to mark exactly one week since an earthquake and tsunami triggered a nuclear emergency, and the government acknowledged it was slow to respond to the disasters that the prime minister called a "great test for the Japanese people."

00:05 am

World leaders have sent condolences and are offerring aid to Japan as the country deals with aftershocks and radiation leaks following last week's massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami.