The situation at Japan's quake-damaged nuclear plant remains very serious, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said.
But IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano said he had "no doubt that this crisis will be effectively overcome".Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant have been battling to cool reactors and spent fuel ponds to avoid a large-scale release of radiation.
Meanwhile, the death toll from the quake and tsunami has risen to 8,450, with nearly 13,000 people missing.
'Positive developments' The Fukushima plant was crippled by fire and explosions after the 11 March quake and tsunami.
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FUKUSHIMA UPDATE
- Reactor 1: Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas explosion. Power lines attached.
- Reactor 2: Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas blast; containment damage suspected. Power lines attached.
- Reactor 3: Damage to the core from cooling problems. Building holed by gas blast; containment damage possible. Spent fuel pond partly refilled with water after running low.
- Reactor 4: Reactor shut down prior to earthquake. Fires and explosion in spent fuel pond; water level partly restored.
- Reactors 5 & 6: Reactors shut down. Temperature of spent fuel pools now lowered after rising high.
Electricity has been restored to three of six reactors and engineers hope to test water pumps soon.
Earlier, some workers were temporarily evacuated from the complex after grey smoke was seen rising from the No 3 reactor.Reports said the smoke appeared to have come from a pool where the reactor's spent fuel rods were kept.
Radiation levels did not appear to have risen significantly though after the smoke was spotted, the IAEA and Japan's nuclear safety agency said.
White smoke was later seen rising from the No 2 reactor.
"The crisis has still not been resolved and the situation at the [plant] remains very serious," Mr Amano, the head of the IAEA, told an emergency board meeting.
But he said he was starting to see positive developments; the cooling system had been restored to reactors 5 and 6, and they "are no longer an immediate concern".
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IAEA director-general Yukiya Amano says the situation at the plant is "very serious"
The NRC said that reactors 1, 2 and 3 had some core damage but their containment was not currently breached.
Meanwhile, the government has ordered a halt to some food shipments from four prefectures around the Fukushima nuclear plant, as concern increases about radioactive traces in vegetables and water supplies.
Villagers living near the plant have been told not to drink tap water because of higher levels of radioactive iodine.
The suspension - which the government said was just a precaution - applies to spinach from the prefectures of Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma, as well as milk from Fukushima.
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Technicians at the Fukushima plant are now battling with damage inflicted to electrical systems by the tsunami - and possibly by the earthquake that preceded it, and the gas explosions that subsequently rocked some of the reactor buildings.
Mains electricity has now arrived at three buildings, and at least in one it has been successfully connected to water pumps.
Some of the circuitry that distributes power around the site has been damaged, and it may be some days before all pumps and all instruments can be connected.
Some key information - such as the water temperature in some of the spent fuel ponds - is still missing, perhaps because instruments were destroyed by fire.
Nevertheless, the power station is undeniably more stable than at any time last week, and for the first time the International Atomic Energy Agency says it 'has no doubt' that the crisis will be overcome.
Analysis
Mains electricity has now arrived at three buildings, and at least in one it has been successfully connected to water pumps.
Some of the circuitry that distributes power around the site has been damaged, and it may be some days before all pumps and all instruments can be connected.
Some key information - such as the water temperature in some of the spent fuel ponds - is still missing, perhaps because instruments were destroyed by fire.
Nevertheless, the power station is undeniably more stable than at any time last week, and for the first time the International Atomic Energy Agency says it 'has no doubt' that the crisis will be overcome.
Over the weekend spinach and milk produced near the nuclear plant was found to contain levels of radioactive iodine far higher than the legal limits.
However, senior government official Yukio Edano told a news conference that eating or drinking the contaminated food would not pose a health hazard. "I would like you to act calmly," he said.The World Health Organization said it had no evidence of contaminated food reaching other countries. However, China, Taiwan and South Korea have announced plans to toughen checks of Japanese imports.
Bad weather forced Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan to cancel a planned visit to emergency workers near the Fukushima plant.
It is also making the recovery work a much more difficult task.
Search-and-relief efforts in the prefecture of Miyagi, where the police chief believes the final quake-tsunami death toll could reach 15,000, have been delayed by driving rain.
"We basically cannot operate helicopters in the rain," Miyagi official Kiyohiro Tokairin said.
"We have been using helicopters to deliver relief goods to some places but for today we have to switch the delivery to places that we can reach by road," he said.
More than 350,000 people are still living in evacuation centres in northern and eastern Japan.
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Rikuzentakata fire chief: "I spend all day looking for the bodies of my firemen"
Some aid from foreign countries has started to arrive, and the government has started the process of finding temporary housing in other parts of the country for those made homeless.
Workers in north-east Japan have begun building temporary homes for the displaced. The prefabricated metal boxes with wooden floors were put up on the hillside near the devastated town of Rikuzentakata.
Nearly 900,000 households are still without water.
In a rare piece of good news, an 80-year-old woman and her grandson were found alive on Sunday in the rubble of their home in Ishinomaki city, where they were trapped for nine days.
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