Engineers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant have managed to lay a cable to reactor¹ 2, the UN's nuclear watchdog reports.

据联合国核监督机构报告，日本福岛核电站的工程师已设法用电缆连接上2号反应堆。

Restoring power should enable engineers to restart the pumps which send coolant（冷却剂） over the reactor.

Workers at Fukushima have been battling to prevent fuel in the reactors² from overheating since Friday's magnitude 9.0 quake and subsequent tsunami³.

The confirmed death toll⁴ from the disaster has risen above 5,600.

More than 9,500 people are missing and tens of thousands of people are living in temporary shelters.

US President Barack Obama has said he is confident the "strong, resilient" people of Japan will recover from the crisis and that the country will emerge stronger than before.

The atomic crisis was triggered when the power supply to Fukushima was damaged by the natural disaster and back-up generators⁵ failed.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which runs the plant, has been attempting to connect it to the main grid⁶ via a 1-km (0.6-mile) electricity cable.

Once power is restored, engineers should be able to re-activate the pumps which send coolant through the reactors and the pools where spent fuel rods are stored.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the cable had reached the site by 1730 local time (0830 GMT) on Thursday, and that engineers planned to reconnect power to the reactor once workers have finished spraying seawater over reactor 3.

Tepco warned the process of reconnecting power could take up to 15 hours.

Helicopters and water cannon⁷ have been dumping seawater over the Fukushima reactors, to try to prevent fuel rods melting.

Video footage had suggested most of the water had been falling outside the target buildings, but a Tepco spokesman said it appeared the operation had had some success.

"When we poured water, we monitored steam rising from the facility. By pouring water, we believe the water turned down the heat. We believe that there was a certain effect," he said.

Another spokesman said on Thursday that aerial（空中的） observations of reactor 4 indicated it did contain some water.

"We have not confirmed how much water was left inside but we have not had information that spent fuel rods are exposed," he said.

Earlier, senior IAEA official Andrew Graham said the situation at Fukushima had not deteriorated⁸, but could yet do so. He described the situation at "reasonably stable".

The head of the IAEA, Yukiya Amano, is heading to Tokyo to be briefed by Japanese officials.