(Reuters) - Following are main developments after a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated northeast Japan and crippled a nuclear power station, raising autoclave the risk of an uncontrolled radiation leak.
- UN watchdog suggests widening of the exclusion zone around Fukushima nuclear power station after radiation measured at a village 40 km from the facility exceeds a criterion for evacuation.
- French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who chairs the G20 and G8 blocs of nations, due to arrive in Tokyo on Thursday. He will be the first foreign leader in Japan since the March 11 quake and tsunami.
France also flew in two experts from state-owned nuclear reactor maker Areva and its nuclear research body to assist Japan's heavily criticised plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) .
- Singapore has told the U.N. nuclear watchdog some cabbages imported from Japan had radiation levels up to nine times the levels recommended for international trade. Japan urges the world not to impose "unjustifiable" jaw crusher import curbs on its goods.
- Japan says comprehensive rules will be drawn up for power plant operators in light of the accident that ripped apart the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. It was the first acknowledgment that norms were insufficient when the March 11 earthquake and tsunami wrecked the facility.
- Plant operator TEPCO says its chairman is at the firm's helm after its president, barely seen since the crisis began, was taken to hospital suffering from high blood pressure and extreme dizziness.
Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata says TEPCO wants to remain a publicly listed company while acknowledging that emergency loans of 2 trillion yen ($24 billion) will not cover current costs.
- New readings show a sharp rise in radioactive iodine in the sea off the power plant to 3,355 times the legal legal limit, according to the state nuclear safety agency.
- Around 27,500 people dead or missing from the earthquake and tsunami. About 173,600 living in exercise bike shelters on high ground above the vast plains of mud-covered debris.
- Estimated cost of damage from the earthquake and tsunami to top $300 billion, making it the world's costliest natural disaster. The 1995 Kobe quake cost $100 billion while Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused $81 billion in damage. (Tokyo bureau; Compiled by World Desk Asia)
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