Foreigners flee Japan as global leaders agree to try and keep yen from rising

The stream of foreigners fleeing Japan is growing, with Australia urging all citizens to leave the country as its nuclear emergency continues.

The United States and Britain have also chartered flights for citizens trying to leave the country, while China moved thousands of its citizens to the capital Tokyo, ahead of potential evacuations.

The nuclear situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains critical. Japanese officials have been dropping water on its stricken reactors via helicopter and fire trucks in a desperate bid to keep fuel rods cool.

How successful these measures have been is unclear, although engineers at the plant are also trying to connect a 1.5 kilometre power cable to the restore power to water pumps that are central to the reactors cooling system.

There was hopes that this power line would be in operation this morning, but it appears work on the line has stopped to allow water bombing to resume.

The drama at the nuclear plant comes amid dramatic scenes on global financial markets, which recovered part of this week’s heavy losses in strong trade overnight.

Markets are likely to receive a further boost after this morning’s announcement that the G7 nations – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and United States – would intervene in currency markets to prevent the yen rising further.

The US dollar hit a record low of ¥76.25 yesterday as the nuclear disaster grew worse, but immediately rose to ¥80.73 on news of the G7 plan.

The strong yen could potentially make it harder for Japan’s economy to recover in the next few years, as a stronger currency would push up the prices of exports.

The G7 plan came as a surprise to many commentators because interventions are so rare.

“This is the first coordinated intervention that we have seen since 2000 so it’s going to have a very huge resonating effect on the market,” Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT in New York, told Reuters.

“Because the only type of intervention that actually works is coordinated intervention and it shows the solidarity of all central banks in terms of the severity of the situation in Japan.”