by Michele Catahay

Guam - A meltdown may be under way at one of Fukushima Daiichi's nuclear power reactors in Northern Japan. According to reports from CNN, Toshihiro Bannai, the director of the agency's International Affairs Office, says there's a possibility of a meltdown. An explosion had sent white smoke from the plant last night.

Reports state that engineers have been unable to get close enough to the core to know what's going on, but they have measured radioactive censium and iodine in the air.

National Weather Service General Forecaster Brandon Aydlett says they're monitoring the trade winds here to determine if the white smoke is heading our way, telling KUAM News, "We should not be affected. Wereally don't have anything to worry about this far south. We have the mid latitude and westerly. That takes everything north about north 25 degrees north latitude and it pushes it across the Pacific Ocean and towards the United States. For us, we sit farther south within the trade wind flow. So the winds are coming from the east. And so our friend is the Subtropical Ridge.

"So it's usually a good barrier between the mid latitude and westerly and the trade winds in the south."

In the meantime officials are still trying to determine how many people have died in Japan as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that took place on Friday. The official death toll from Japan's National Police Agency was at 689, with 639 missing and 1,570 people injured.

The actual toll is thought to be much higher.