Japanese military helicopters and fire trucks poured water on an overheating nuclear facility on Thursday and the plant operator said electricity to part of the crippled complex could be restored in a desperate bid to avert catastrophe.

Washington and other foreign capitals expressed growing alarm about radiation leaking from the earthquake-shattered plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo. The United States said it was sending aircraft to help Americans leave Japan.

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Workers were trying to connect a 1-km (0.6-mile) long power cable from the main grid to restart water pumps to cool reactor No. 2, which does not house spent fuel rods considered the biggest risk of spewing radioactivity into the atmosphere.