Japan has raised the alert level at its quake-damaged nuclear plant from four to five on a seven-point international scale of atomic incidents.
The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi site, previously rated as a local problem, is now regarded as having "wider consequences".
The UN says the battle to stabilise the plant is a race against time.
The crisis was prompted by last week's huge quake and tsunami, which has left at least 17,000 people dead or missing.
Japanese nuclear officials said core damage to reactors 2 and 3 had prompted the raising of the severity grade.
The 1979 incident at Three Mile Island in the US was also rated at five on the scale, whereas the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was rated at seven.
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Further heavy snowfall overnight all but ended hopes of rescuing anyone else from the rubble after the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami.
Millions of people have been affected by the disaster - many survivors have been left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food; hundreds of thousands are homeless.
The national police say 6,911 people are known to have died in the disaster, and 10,316 are still missing.
On Friday, people across Japan observed a minute's silence at 1446 (0546 GMT), exactly one week after the disaster.
As the country paused to remember, relief workers toiling in the ruins bowed their heads, and some elderly survivors in evacuation centres wept.
Japanese officials continue to try to reassure people that the radiation risk is virtually nil outside the 30-km (18-mile) exclusion zone around the plant.
BBC
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