Fukushima nuclear power plant update: get all the data

Japan is racing to gain control of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plan. Where does the most detailed data come from? Updated daily
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Inside the Fukushima nuclear plant by Friday 18th March. Click image for graphic

The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and following tsunami on March 11 has seen a rush by officials to gain control of power plants in the north-east of the country.
The latest news is that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has raised it's severity level from five to seven - the same level as Chernobyl in 1986. Justin McCurry writes:

"Nuclear safety officials had insisted they had no plans to raise the severity of the crisis from five – the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 – according to the international nuclear and radiological event scale.
But the government came under pressure to raise the level at the plant after Japan's nuclear safety commission estimated the amount of radioactive material released from its stricken reactors reached 10,000 terabecquerels per hour for several hours following the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country's northeast coast on 11 March. That level of radiation constitutes a major accident, according to the INES scale."

Fukushima nuclear power plant has been closely scrutinised as reports flow in on the progress of the situation - Japan's nuclear board previoulsy raised the nuclear alert level from four to five in the weeks following the disaster and the JAIF warned of products such as dairy and spinach being restricted for shipping. Explosions and reports of nuclear fuel rods melting at the power plant have meant progress on the situation has been closely followed as has the environmental effects with concerns for marine life and spreading radiation through seawater.
Industry body the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum are currently publishing daily updates of the status of power plants in Fukushima which give great detail into the condition of each reactor. Ranked from a level of low to severe, the update records the conditions of core and fuel integrity, water level and containment amongst other key information. These are some of the most in-depth and recent records and show how the crisis is being handled.
The dangers facing those working at the plant continues to be a subject of concern as does radiation seeping into drinking water, after twice the safe level of radioactive iodine for young children, was found in Tokyo tap water.
The table below shows the status of the reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi (the largest of the Fukushima power plants) and is colour coded to show the severity. Green for low, yellow represents high and red shows those of severe significance as judged by the JAIF. We have used JAIF's update 84 as of 20:00 local time as this is the most up to the minute data we can get.
A table of major incidents and accidents at the plants can be found in our spreadsheet as can the data for Daini, Onagawa and Tokai Daini Nuclear power stations. What can you do with this data?

Data summary

Fukushima nuclear power plant update - 12th April 2011

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Unit	1	2	3	4	5	6
SOURCE: JAIF Radiation level:0.56mSv/h at the south side of the office building, 78μSv/h at the Main gate, 32μSv/h at the West gate, as of 15:00, Apr. 12th Evacuation: <1> Shall be evacuated for within 3km from NPS, Shall stay indoors for within 10km from NPS (issued at 21:23, Mar. 11th) <2> Shall be evacuated for within 10km from NPS (issued at 05:44, Mar. 12th) <3> Shall be evacuated for within 20km from NPS (issued at 18:25, Mar. 12th) <4> Shall stay indoors (issued at 11:00, Mar. 15th), Should consider leaving (issued at 11:30, Mar. 25th) for from 20km to 30km from NPS　<5>The 20km evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi NPS is to be expanded so as to include the area, where annual radiation exposure is expected to be above 20mSv. People in the expanded zone are ordered to evacuate within a month or so. People living in the 20 to 30km and other than the expanded evacuation area mentioned above, are asked to get prepared for staying indoors or evacuation in an emergency (issued on Apr. 11th) Remarks: ●Progress of the work to recover injection function Water injection to the reactor pressure vessel by temporally installed pumps were switched from seawater to freshwater at Unit 1, 2 and 3. High radiation circumstance hampering the work to restore originally installed pumps for injection. Discharging radioactive water in the basement of the buildings of Unit 1through 3 continue to improve this situation. Water transfer work is being made to secure a place the water to go. Lighting in the turbine buildings became partly　available at Unit 1through 4. ●Function of containing radioactive material It is presumed that radioactive material inside the reactor vessel may leaked outside at Unit 1, 2 and Unit 3, based on radioactive material found outside. NISA announced that the reactor pressure vessel of Unit 2 and 3 may have lost air tightness because of low pressure inside the pressure vessel. NISA told that it is unlikely that these are cracks or holes in the reactor pressure vessels at the same occasion. Nitrogen gas injection into the Unit 1containment vessel has been continued to reduce the possibility of hydrogen explosion since Apr. 6th. The pressure of the vessel has hardly risen for the past a few days and leakage of the vessel is suspected. The same measure will be taken for Unit 2 and 3. ●Cooling the spent fuel pool Steam like substance rose intermittently from the reactor building at Unit 1, 2, 3 and 4 has been observed. Injecting and/or spraying water to the spent fuel pool has been conducted. ●Prevention of the proliferation of contaminated dust: Testing the spraying synthetic resin to contain contaminated dust began on Apr. 1st.