Countries using nuclear energy must ensure their reactors are built to withstand multiple disasters after Japan's accident revealed gaps in safety standards, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Tuesday.

Stronger partnerships must also be forged with the atomic industry to boost safety, he said, noting that nuclear technology can also be harnessed for medical use, improving agricultural production and promoting sustainable development.

An earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan in March triggered the accident at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, the worst nuclear crisis in 25 years, raising questions about the future of nuclear energy and fuelling public fears, Ban said.

"Those countries with advanced nuclear energy technology must ensure that nuclear reactors can withstand multiple hazards -- various combinations of an earthquake, tsunami, flood and fire," he told a U.N roundtable on strengthening preparedness for nuclear accidents.

No country is immune to disaster, he said. "By our actions we can either compound disasters or diminish them."

Ban has already announced plans for a summit meeting on nuclear safety on September 22 in New York.

Japan's government said on Tuesday it would not set an initial limit on Tokyo Electric Power's liability for damages caused by its leaking Fukushima plant and said the utility must tighten its belt further.
People living within a 20-km (12-mile) radius of the plant have been evacuated, while those in five towns downwind from it have also been told to prepare to leave their homes.

BRINGING THE SITUATION UNDER CONTROL

"We are striving to prevent further diversion of radioactive substance," Kenichi Suganuma, Japan's ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, told the U.N. session. "Probably within two months we will have radiation much lower which will facilitate work within the plant itself."

"Our immediate priority is to bring the situation under control as soon as possible. As a next step we will have to thoroughly examine the incident, the cause of the accident, and what is missing or lacking in terms of security standards."

Since 1976, 26 nuclear incidents have occurred that could have reached level 7 -- indicating the most severe grade of incident -- Yuri Brazhnikov, head of the emergency corps of Russia's civil defence ministry, told the talks.

"Accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have shown the international community that severe emergencies even of low probability need to be addressed in emergency plans," said Elena Buglova, acting head of the incident and emergency centre at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

She was referring to a U.S. accident in 1979 and the nuclear accident in the Ukraine in 1986.

The discussion on nuclear safety was held at the start of a weeklong conference on disaster risk reduction.

A U.N. report issued on Tuesday said that the chance of dying in a weather-related disaster is diminishing worldwide, but economic losses from catastrophes are rising in all regions often due to a lack of investment.
Disasters have already caused more than $300 billion in losses so far this year, roughly the same as in all of 2010, a U.N. spokeswoman said, citing figures by the Centre for Research for Epidemiology of Disasters, a U.N. collaborating centre.