Japanese engineers have managed to connect a power cable to the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant and say electricity can be supplied.
Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the facility, said "planned to supply Unit 2 (reactor) first, followed by Unit 1, Unit 3 and Unit 4 ... because Unit 2 is expected to be less damaged."
It is hoped that power will restore the station's failed cooling systems -- but there is no guarantee that they will be in working condition.
Officials said more cabling needed to be connected inside the station to the water pumps before they can be restarted and tested.
The company is aiming to restore power to the Unit 1 and 2 reactors on Saturday and the Unit 3 and 4 reactors by Sunday.
Tokyo Electric Power Company also downplayed any thoughts of the worst-case scenario -- burying the station in sand and concrete as was done at Chernobyl.
"That's not a realistic choice right now," a company spokesperson told Japan's Kyodo News.
Severity increased
Earlier, Japanese officials acknowledged that the Fukushima nuclear crisis is more severe than initially believed, with Prime Minister Naoto Kan telling reporters Friday that the situation is "very grave" at the power plant where several reactors remain at risk of melting down.
Officials initially rated the emergency at Fukushima's Dai-ichi nuclear plant as a level 4 incident on the International Nuclear Event Scale, meaning that it held local consequences. On Friday, they reclassified it as a level 5 incident, meaning that it is now judged to have wider consequences. Level 7 is the highest rating on the scale, reached in 1986 in the Chernobyl disaster.
The level five rating is for the Unit 1, 2 and 3 reactors. The Unit 4 reactor, where spent rod fuels were stored, has been rated at a level three.
Since the record earthquake and tsunami struck in Japan last week, Dai-ichi officials have lost the ability to cool down several reactors, leading to explosions and fires at the plant and the frightening risk of a full meltdown in the stricken reactors.
In fact, CTV's Tom Walters reported that the change in rating on the INES scale is "a recognition and acknowledgement that there have been meltdowns -- or partial meltdowns -- occurring in one or more of these reactors."
While plant workers and firefighters have been heaping tons of water on the complex to keep its reactors and nuclear fuel from overheating, Japan has reached out to the international community for help bringing the Fukushima reactors back under control.
On Friday, a U.S. military fire truck was helping six other Japanese fire trucks spray water into reactor Unit 3, which is believed to be dangerously low on water, raising the risk that its fuel rods could heat further and spew out radiation.
Yukio Amano, the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters Friday that his agency views the ongoing Dai-ichi crisis "as an extremely serious incident."
Amano said Japan needs the help of the international community and is "racing against the clock" in its efforts to cool down the reactors at the complex in Fukushima.
On Friday, the Japanese prime minister told reporters that plant workers are risking their lives to prevent disaster at the plant and the government is being as transparent as it can be about the dangers posed to the public.
"Everything has been disclosed to the Japanese public. We have shared what we know with the international community and I would like to stress that point," Kan said, according to an English language translation of his remarks on NHK.
Many Japanese remain concerned about what they are being told about the nuclear crisis, wondering if they are getting the full picture.
Yaeko Sato, 57, told an Associated Press reporter that she is tired of not knowing what is going on.
"All we hear are rumours," she said.
The nuclear crisis is just an added level of worry for people like Sato, who have lost loved ones, their homes and their prior lives in the wake of the recent disasters.
"We are worried about the nuclear crisis, but we are more worried about how we will rebuild our lives," Sato said. "I don't know how many months we will stay here. I don't know where we will live."
With files from The Associated Press
