Anger over Japan nuclear exodus
Fukushima prefecture governor Yuhei Sato said: "Anxiety and anger felt by people have reached boiling point."
Engineers are racing to avert a nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi, badly damaged by Friday`s quake and tsunami.
The government has declared a 20km (12-mile) evacuation zone around it.
Another 140,000 people living between 20-30km of the facility were told on Tuesday not to leave their homes.
Mr Sato said centres already housing people who had been moved from their homes near the plant did not have enough hot meals and basic necessities such as fuel and medical supplies. "We`re lacking everything," he said.
Japanese media have became more critical of Prime Minister Naoto Kan`s handling of the disaster, and have accused both the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co of failing to provide enough information on the incident.
Thousands of people were killed in the 9.0-magnitude quake and tsunami. In a rare public appearance, Japan`s Emperor Akihito has said he is "deeply worried" about the crisis his country is facing.
The atomic crisis has been caused by the tsunami wrecking back-up diesel generators which kept the nuclear fuel cool at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, 220km from Tokyo.
Workers have been dousing the reactors with seawater in a frantic effort to stabilise their temperatures, since the first in a series of explosions rocked the plant on Saturday.
Helicopters deployed to dump water on the facility on Wednesday were pulled out amid concerns over radiation levels in the air above the site. Reports suggest another plan is now under consideration to use water cannon.
Earlier, the plant`s operators evacuated its skeleton crew of 50 workers for about an hour as ground-level radiation spiked.
And yet another fire broke out in a reactor, while steam billowed from another one.
The power facility has sent low levels of radiation wafting into Tokyo, spreading alarm in the city and internationally.
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, said developments at the plant were "very serious", as he prepared to head to the country to assess the situation.
Other news in this section
