Workers briefly evacuate stricken nuclear plant

FUKUSHIMA, Japan Workers at a quake-damaged atomic power plant briefly suspended operations and evacuated Wednesday after a surge in radiation made it too dangerous to remain there, dealing a setback to Japan’s frantic efforts to stem a nuclear crisis. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said work on dousing the overheated reactors with water was disrupted by the need to withdraw. All the workers there have suspended their operations. We have urged them to evacuate, and they have," Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Edano said, according to a translation by NHK television.The workers were allowed back into the plant less than an hour later after the radiation levels had fallen. The surge in radiation was apparently the result of a Tuesday fire in the complex's Unit 4 reactor, according to officials with Japan's nuclear safety agency. That blast is thought to have damaged the reactor's suppression chamber, a water-filled pipe outside the nuclear core that is part of the emergency cooling system.