With trace amounts of radiation detected in Tokyo as of two days ago, last night, at 9:40pm PT, FRANCE urged its citizens to evacuate Tokyo due to concerns about radiation emanating from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant located approximately 180 miles to the north.

"The French government has urged its nationals living in Tokyo to leave the country or head to southern Japan due to the risk of radiation...The French embassy in Tokyo said in a statement that its advisory applied with immediate effect to those French nationals who were not obliged to remain in the city," says Reuters. France has begun to send jumbo jets to Tokyo to aid in the evacuation.

France is not the only only country to issue such an advisory. These are from Reuters' latest collection of travel warnings, as of 12:42pm PT today...

[STORY UPDATED 8:08PM PT, FOLLOWING THE CONCLUSION OF CHIEF CABINET SECRETARY SPOKESMAN YUKIO EDANO'S PRESS CONFERENCE.]

The smoke seen rising above from Fukushima's Daiichi nuclear power planet is believed to be emanating from reactor Unit 3, according to the Japanese government's chief spokesperson Yukio Edano who just completed a press conference moments ago. Due to high radiation levels, all workers were evacuated from the plant, and all work suspended for a time. [Update: Reuters now confirms that workers were allowed back in after radiation levels fell, as we'd originally reported.]

Edano said that at approximately 8:30am local time, white smoke began coming out of the No. 3 reactor, but that the joint task force between the government and the plant's operators, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), are still trying to determine the cause. It's believed the smoke is actually vapor coming from a rupture in the reactor's containment vessel, he said. Steam was to be let out to allow workers to pump in more sea water in hopes of keeping the reactor cool.

Earlier today there were reports of rising radiation levels near the gate of the facility, leading to the evacuation of all workers at the plant, leaving no one to fight the fire. Last night, all but 50 workers had been evacuated after an explosion at Unit 2 and a fire at Unit 4 (which had been off-line for maintenance prior to last Friday's earthquake and tsunami, and storing spent fuel rods in a pool which may have caught fire.)

While workers had suspended operations, radiation levels have since begun to decrease, Edano said. They have now returned to continuing pumping sea water into Units 1, 2 and 3 in the ongoing attempts to cool down the reactors' fuel rods following failure of their emergency cooling systems.

At the same time, TEPCO released a photograph of the damage at the reactor Unit 4 building following the explosion there on Sunday...

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[* * * 7:50pm PT UPDATE: PRIME MINISTER'S 'MESSAGE TO NATION': Radiation levels rising, now risk human health, evacuations expanded See THIS UPDATE below for full details]

I was working on an UPDATE (not finished yet), concerning Fukushima Daiichi's reactor Unit 2 on last night's live blog thread following the explosion at Unit 3, when news just broke at 6:14am local time, that there has now been an explosion at the Unit 2 reactor.

The new explosion follows two others, said to have been hydrogen explosions first at Unit 1, and then Unit 3 a day later, and news late last night that the emergency cooling system at Unit 2 had been damaged during the Unit 3 blast, resulting in the uranium fuel rods at 2 becoming dangerously, and completely exposed for a number of hours before sea water injection was resumed in hopes of cooling the number 2 reactor.

Now, according to various reliable sources on Twitter over the last few minutes...

An explosion has occurred within the past hour at the Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 nuclear reactor in Japan. It appears to by a hydrogen explosion similar to the one which occurred at Unit 1 on Saturday. There had been reports earlier in the day that radiation had been rising at the reactor, similar to what had been reported before the earlier explosion at Unit 1.

Yesterday, the emergency cooling system at Unit 3 had failed, prompting officials to announce another "nuclear emergency" following the earthquake and tsunami that occurred in Japan one day earlier. Officials had taken the unusual measure to cool the reactor with sea water, which means it's unlikely to be usable ever again.

The previous explosion at Unit 1 is said to have destroyed the building housing the nuclear reactor --- causing what was variously described as a "partial meltdown" or "deformation" of at least one of the uranium fuel rods --- but did not breach the reactor container itself, so the release of radioactivity is said to have been minor. Officials are signaling a similar situation here.

Additional reports, updates, photos and videos on the new explosion all now being added below. Newest UPDATES at bottom...

Opening this as a new article as of the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. This one picks up with updates following the much UPDATED previous one,

For previous reports on how we got here, as we collected them throughout the entire day Friday and late into the evening as officials had shut down the two nuclear plants and five reactors where they'd issued "nuclear emergencies" and widened local evacuations, please see our previous article...

Latest news, beginning with the EXPLOSION at Fukushima Daiichi No. 1, now posted here with new UPDATES at bottom of this article...

UPDATE 3/12/11 12:07am: "EXPLOSION HEARD." Okay. Never mind standing down for now. This could be very bad...These all from Reuters via Twitter:

"Explosion heard at quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan - AFP via Sky News"

"FLASH: Several people appear to have been injured after reported Fukushima plant explosion - media"

"Japan nuclear plant update: Several workers injured following explosion at quake-hit site - NHK"

3/12 12:22am PT: Most detailed report on explosion at moment. From Lisa Twaronite at MarketWatch...

We've been updating this item all day and night --- having started the earlier this afternoon --- as events have developed...See bottom for latest updates through the EXPLOSION which has 3/12/11 1am PT.

This now deserves its own item --- as I've feared it has since last night's cryptic official comments --- so I've broken off the UPDATES from the previous item, concerning the nuclear emergency declared at Fukushima in the wake of last night's earthquake and tsunami in Japan to this item, dedicated to the nuke issues.

We asked, snarkily, at the end of the original item earlier today: "Nuclear Energy for America: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?"

We may be learning exactly that tonight, as radiation levels are reported to be 1000 times normal levels; "emergency" declarations now exist for two plants --- Fukushima Daiichi plant on east coast, 200 miles north of Tokyo and the Fukushima Daiichi complex --- with a total of five reactors said to be at risk; evacuations around the plants have been expanded to 10km; and, as one of the experts has said (and several others have concurred), "the possibility of some sort of core meltdown" exists.

If there was nothing to worry about here, it seems that officials would be saying that over and over. They are not.

So, the original UPDATES to the earlier item, and the additional ones we've added throughout the day, all follow below --- with new UPDATES, and what seems to be the increasingly bad news, including two nuclear experts who have just appeared on Rachel Maddow moments ago saying the more they hear, the less assured they are that things are safe --- all added to the bottom of the article, where we'll continue to update as warranted.

We're also continue to tweet quick updates and links via: @TheBradBlog.

UPDATE 12:41pm PT: More details here on the "Nuclear Crisis at Fukushima". The article is already outdated, however, as the 2km evacuation has just now been expanded to 10km by the Japanese Prime Minister, according to tweets from VOA's Asian Bureau Chief Steve Herman who adds: "Officials now saying radiation at Fukushima nuke plant 1,000X normal level." (BBC report on levels.)

Herman adds Kyodo is reporting "This suggests radioactive steam could spread around the facility."

Really not good.

UPDATE: 2:41pm PT: CNN has an update now, including an expert who says, "If they can't restore power to the plant (and cool the reactor), then there's the possibility of some sort of core meltdown."

Key excerpts now follow below...

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