japan upgrade of nuclear threat level

the threat level from the fukushima disaster went up to its highest level today - it's the lame level as chernobyl. Anyone know why? Does that mean the fukishima plant is at risk of imminent meltdown?

I'm intrigued.

Because of a statistical analysis of the quantity of radioactivity released from the plant (estimated to be about 630,000 terabequerels)

The INES level isn't related to the danger posed by the incident. To compare, the quantity of radioactivity released from Fukushima is a mere 10% of that released into the environment by Chernobyl, and the two accidents are completely different in that Fukushima's radioactivity comprises of relatively short-lived isotopes, like Iodine-131, Nitrogen-13 and small quantities of Caesium-137, whereas Chernobyl was literally incinerating Uranium, Plutonium, Strontium-90 along with Radio-Iodine etc. and spewing them out unchecked into the atmosphere.

The two incidents may have the same INES level, but are in completely different leagues. The worst is over at Fukushima, it won't get any worse.

Just out of interest what does the INES level refer to then?

The scale of the nuclear incident according to 3 different criteria:

Effect on People and the Environment - which looks at the health risks and how far reaching a release of radioactivity is.

Radiological Barriers and Control - which looks at the quantity of radioactivity released and to what extent the design of the facility has failed to contain this radioactivity.

Defence in Depth - which looks at how the redundant backups have performed.

More info: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Factsheets/English/ines.pdf

Ah, so methinks you weren't criticizing media because of the method of analysing them, just the fact that it has a limit (7) so it cannot distinguish between two 'Major incidents'.