Safety teams working to prevent a nuclear disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have cut holes into reactor covers to release accruing hydrogen threatening to explode.

The teams of plant operator TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power company, have made holes in the outside covers of reactors 5 and 6 of the Fukushima 1 NPP as the accummulation of hydrogen inside was expected to lead to explosions and to damage futher the reactors badly hit by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake last week.

Japanese authorities said Saturday they were close to restoring electricity to reactor cooling systems at the stricken nuclear plant in Fukushima as efforts to prevent dangerous radiation leaks reached a crucial phase.

The nuclear safety agency says, as cited by international media, that electricity was expected to be reconnected to units 1, 2, 5 and 6 at the Fukushima plant on Saturday but power to units 3 and 4 can only be restored tomorrow.

However, it is not clear whether the cooling system will work properly even if power is restored. Reports say emergency services were also  preparing to dump more water on overheating fuel rods. Fukushima's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, says it has installed an external power line to the plant, and engineers were battling to reconnect reactor units.

TEPCO's CEO, Masa-taka Shi-mi-zu, has apologised to the public saying that although the accident was due to natural disaster, he was extremely regretful of the trouble caused. hydrogen gas.

Outside of the nuclear facility on the island of Honshu in northeast Japan, there have been few indications of any immediate, dangerous fall-out from the crisis so far, CNN reported.

Radiation levels around Japan have showed no signs of spiking considerably, according to measurements just before midnight Friday posted online by the nation's education and science ministry. Even the two top readings in Mito (in Ibaraki prefecture) and Utsonomiya (in Toshigi prefecture) are well below what is considered dangerous to humans and fell in recent days.

And whereas several explosions, caused by the buildup of hydrogen, rocked the Fukushima Daiichi plant in the days right after the quake, there have no such high-profile incidents in recent days.

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