The world watches as 50 brave workers battle the unfolding disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.[nddaily]

Around 50 Japanese workers are holding the line in the battle to contain the unfolding catastrophe at the Fukushima nuclear power station. All volunteers, they are risking their lives in a manner that recalls their Soviet counterparts during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The main task of the volunteers is to pump seawater to cool nuclear fuel rods, after the power station's primary and backup cooling systems were knocked out by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami. The team is thought to include some members of the emergency services as well as technicians employed by plant operator the Tokyo Electric Power Company. Their names have so far been kept confidential.

When the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded in 1986, technicians remained at their posts and fire-fighters rushed to the scene to try to control the radioactive inferno. According to UN figures, 134 emergency workers were exposed to massive doses of radiation and 28 died within three months of the accident. Thousands of emergency workers were named Heroes of the Soviet Union in recognition of their extraordinary courage.

No doubt safety awareness and training are both at a higher level in 2011 Japan than in the Soviet Union in 1986. But the risks being taken by the staff at the Fukushima plant are still extremely grave.

On Wednesday morning the emergency team was temporarily withdrawn after radiation levels at the plant jumped rapidly, according to Japanese Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. Edano said the most likely cause was radioactive vapor released from the containment vessel of the plant's number 3 reactor. By the afternoon the team had returned and resumed water spraying operations, the government said.

Edano said that measurements taken on the perimeter of the 20 kilometer evacuation zone around the plant showed radiation levels there do not pose an immediate risk to health but "might cause problems for someone who remained outside 24 hours a day, 365 days a year" in the area.

A key government concern is that panic about the effects of radiation has interrupted deliveries of essential supplies, especially to the city of Iwaki which is about 30 kilometers from the plant. The governor of Fukushima prefecture yesterday issued an urgent appeal to the private sector to resume deliveries, Edano said.

After yesterday's radiation spike, a sharp division emerged between US and Japanese assessments of the gravity of the situation. Chairman of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Gregory Jaczko claimed there was little or no water left in a pool used to store spent fuel from the plant's deactivated number 4 reactor, and that the fuel rods were leaking radiation into the atmosphere. He advised US citizens to stay at least 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the plant, four times the Japanese recommendation.

If Jaczko's information is correct, the implications for the emergency team in the plant could be dire. With exposed fuel rods, radiation levels may reach a point where continuing to work is not just extraordinarily brave, but suicidal.