British nationals in Tokyo and northern Japan were last night advised to leave the area as the nuclear crisis deepened,

British nationals in Tokyo and northern Japan were last night advised to leave the area as the nuclear crisis deepened, amid warnings it might prove worse than Chernobyl.
The Foreign Office said Britons near the disaster zone should either leave the country or move to southern Japan. Other nations also urged their citizens to leave Tokyo, while several big Nordic companies, including Ikea and H&M, offered to help staff relocate further south.

Asian and European airlines began diverting Tokyo flights to Osaka or cancelling them altogether.

The Foreign Office advice was issued after another fraught day that saw engineers pushed back by surging radiation levels as they attempted to bring the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant under control. Radiation was "extremely high", and the water used to cool nuclear fuel at one of the exploded reactors was evaporating.