OMG Earthquake?

[Wetcoaster]

The Japanese government claims it is giving out accurate information on the nuclear plants and radiation as quickly as possible. Of course that begs the question of how reliable the information the government is getting from TEPCO (see post #1139)

0841: Japanese government spokesman Yukio Edano has denied the authorities are withholding information on the situation around the nuclear facilities: "The information that we're collecting on the Japanese side, we naturally pass to authorities in the United States. But there is a time delay in delivering this information. This was especially the case with information regarding reactor No.4. However, we have heard that the situation in the cooling pool of reactor No.3 is more of a priority and so we are dropping water on that first. We are also concentrating on the situation in the cooling pool of reactor No.4, but we still haven't come to a firm conclusion about its situation."

Japanese media have became more critical of Prime Minister Naoto Kan's handling of the disaster, and have accused both the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co of failing to provide enough information on the incident.

[Truculence]

It will never be as bad as Chernobyl. If a complete meltdown occurs, it will be very localized and emit radioactivity levels that are lower than what the Soviets had. This event is still controllable to an extent too, whereas the one at Chernobyl was just fiery explosive chaos.

Japan Asks Korea for Chemicals, Energy Supplies

Tokyo has asked Seoul for vast quantities of boric acid to keep stricken reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station cool. Boric acid lowers the temperatures of the reactors by preventing nuclear fission.

Minister of Knowledge Economy Choi Joong-kyung Wednesday said Japan officially asked for 52.6 tons of boric acid. "We'll send it as quickly as possible once we've checked that our stockpile is suitable for the Japanese nuclear plant," he added.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, which is experiencing disruption to electricity supply in the wake of a series of explosions at the plant, has also asked the Korea Gas Corporation for shipments of liquefied natural gas to fuel thermal power generation. KGC agreed to ship 500,000 tons to Japan by early April.

JX NOE, Japan's largest oil refinery which has sustained earthquake damage to production facilities, asked Korean refiners including SK Innovation and GS Caltex to supply petroleum products and buy crude oil it holds but failed to process due to the earthquake.

The refiners decided to give priority to helping the Japanese firms. The earthquake has left about 20 percent of oil refineries in Japan suspended.

http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/03/17/2011031701085.html Edited March 17, 2011 by Truculence

[Wetcoaster]

Here is an article by Richard Black, Environment Correspondent for the BBC explaining the issue with the fuel rods on the containment pool and the potential danger. It seems this is the reason that helicopters were to have been dumping water at the plant - to replenish the containment pond.

He also points out TEPCO has raised the issue of criticality - in other words a nuclear fission chain reaction is possible.

Over the days of the Fukushima crisis, attention has switched from reactor building 1 to 3, to 2, back to 3 - and now, to 4.

This is a surprise.

Reactors 4, 5 and 6 were shut down at the time of Friday's earthquake, with some or all of their fuel rods extracted and left in the cooling ponds that each reactor building has under its roof.

Once a reactor is turned off, radioactivity and heat generation in the rods die away quickly; down to 7% of the original power within a second of switch-off, 5% within a minute, 0.5% within a day.

Transferred to the cooling pond, allowing technicians to do routine maintenance on the reactor, the rods are supposed to sit quietly until the time comes for their re-insertion or their journey towards disposal.

The tops of the rods are supposed to be about 5m (16ft) below the water surface.

The water keeps them cool and also blocks radiation.

Over the last few days there have been reports suggesting water levels were low and the water "boiling"; and now the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which has a team of 11 experts advising in Japan, says the pool is completely dry.

This means the fuel rods are exposed to the air. Without water, they will get much hotter, allowing radioactive material to escape.

More remarkably, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which owns the power station, has warned: "The possibility of re-criticality is not zero".

If you are in any doubt as to what this means, it is that in the company's view, it is possible that enough fissile uranium is present in the cooling pond in enough density to form a critical mass - meaning that a nuclear fission chain reaction could start.

The pool lies outside the containment chamber.

So if it happened, it would lead to the enhanced and sustained release of radioactive materials - though not to a nuclear explosion - with nothing to stop the radioactive particles escaping.

Chain reaction

The first event in this chain appears to be that the level of water in the pond fell.

Why that should happen is not entirely clear.

Was the fuel so hot that it caused an unanticipated amount of evaporation? Did the earthquake somehow crack the building's structure, allowing water to leak out?

Did the two fires in the building have an impact? Visually, the building housing reactor 4 is the most damaged on the site - suggesting that reports of the two fires being relatively minor were wide of the mark.

Or, did technicians at some point take water from the pond for use in reactor 4's cooling system?

There is nothing to say they did; but during the chaos of the weekend, with power systems and options disappearing before their eyes, it might have seemed like a good idea.

Whatever the reason, the rods became hot enough that steam reacted with the zirconium cladding around the fuel rods, generating hydrogen and causing an explosion.

The same thing happened earlier in reactor buildings 1, 2 and 3 - except that in building 4, the rods were in the fuel pond, not in a reactor.

The government ordered Tepco to put water back in the pool.

But either because of high radiation levels or broken pumps or some other reason, they could not.

Wednesday's plan to drop water in from a helicopter - a technique that is used to fight forest fires - had to be scrapped because of concerns about radiation affecting the pilots. Without the water, gamma-rays travel straight up into the air.

There are reports that the authorities have asked US military personnel to bring in water cannon, which would presumably be fired from the ground, aiming to shoot the water in through the broken roof.

'Rock and a hard place'

The NRC says that in the current dry state, radiation levels from the pond are probably "extremely high", creating a danger to workers at the plant.

Still, in principle this should not raise any possibility of resumed criticality.

According to Laurence Williams, professor of nuclear safety at the University of Central Lancashire, it could depend on how the rods are arranged in the water.

Man watching TVs in South Korea The incident has sparked fears of radioactivity in other Asian countries

"In some fuel ponds, they dose the water with boric acid at low levels," he told BBC News.

"In some systems they've re-racked the fuel assembly making it possible to put more rods in the pond than it was originally designed for, and then you might put extra sheets of boron in between."

Boron and boric acid mop up neutrons, the particles that sustain the chain reaction.

In this sort of reactor, water is a crucial component of the fission process.

It acts as a moderator - it reduces the speed of the neutrons, meaning they can be captured by uranium nuclei in the fuel rods, inducing them to split.

Without water, the neutrons travel too fast, and are not captured.

Professor Williams raised a scenario that may be unfolding in the cooling pond in building 4. It is just a possibility, because information is scanty; but here it is.

If the fuel rods are dry and hot, there could be damage to the cladding and the release of light radioactive nuclei.

To prevent that, you would want to inject water. But water on its own is a neutron moderator and would enhance the chances, however small, of criticality.

"You're caught between a rock and a hard place," he observed.

Now, Tepco is also talking about putting boric acid into the cooling pond of number 4 building.

How closely the rods were packed, whether any boron sheets were in place and if so whether they were damaged by one of the two fires in the building; these are among the many unanswered questions.

Core task

Meanwhile, the most important task remains to get enough water flowing into reactors 1, 2 and 3 to cool the cores.

Following Tuesday's apparent cracking of the suppression chamber in reactor 2 - a likely cause of the radioactivity spike then seen - there were concerns that the same thing might have occured on Wednesday in reactor 3.

However, the latest reports from Japanese news sources suggest reactor 3's containment system is intact.

If that proves to be the case, the source of Wednesday's radiation spike remains a mystery.

It seems to have been big enough to force technicians to leave the plant.

Clearly, their presence is crucial to stabilising the reactors - and to control the situation in the dry pool in building 4. If they were forced away for long periods, the chances of containing the crisis would fall.

"If water is continuously pumped, they could stabilise the position, because the moment when fuel rods are covered with water, the situation is basically stabilised," observed Jasmina Vujic, professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

Tepco sounded a rare optimistic note by saying engineers would soon restore an electrical connection from the national grid - which should allow them to re-start water pumps, provided they have not been damaged by the tsunami or the hydrogen explosions.

While this work continues, so do the questions over the building 4 fuel pond.

Re-criticality seems an extraordinary thing to contemplate; but if it is not a real possibility, why was such an idea floated by the company itself?

The bigger picture, though, is still one of a serious local incident, with minor impacts outside the plant.

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, however, suggested Fukushima was now more serious than the 1979 Three Mile Island incident in the US - and if contamination does spread outside the immediate area, that will prove to be the case.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12762608

[Truculence]

Timeline video of earthquake occurrences and their magnitude from Mar. 9th to the 14th.

The big one hits around 1:17. Check out all the aftershocks.

Edited March 17, 2011 by Truculence

[Justin.]

Seems like there's earthquakes happening everywhere. Chile and Ontario had minor ones yesterday, 5.3 and 4.7 magnitude respectively.

[Wetcoaster]

An Associated press report on the scandal plagued nuclear industry in Japan and why the Japanese media (and international agencies) would be skeptical of the Japanese government's claim of transparency and openness regarding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis.

Bungling, cover-ups define Japanese nuclear power

TOKYO (AP) — Behind Japan's escalating nuclear crisis sits a scandal-ridden energy industry in a comfy relationship with government regulators often willing to overlook safety lapses.

Leaks of radioactive steam and workers contaminated with radiation are just part of the disturbing catalog of accidents that have occurred over the years and been belatedly reported to the public, if at all.

In one case, workers hand-mixed uranium in stainless steel buckets, instead of processing by machine, so the fuel could be reused, exposing hundreds of workers to radiation. Two later died.

"Everything is a secret," said Kei Sugaoka, a former nuclear power plant engineer in Japan who now lives in California. "There's not enough transparency in the industry."

Sugaoka worked at the same utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant where workers are racing to prevent a full meltdown following Friday's 9.0 magnitude quake and tsunami.

In 1989 Sugaoka received an order that horrified him: edit out footage showing cracks in plant steam pipes in video being submitted to regulators. Sugaoka alerted his superiors in the Tokyo Electric Power Co., but nothing happened — for years. He decided to go public in 2000. Three Tepco executives lost their jobs.

The legacy of scandals and cover-ups over Japan's half-century reliance on nuclear power has strained its credibility with the public. That mistrust has been renewed this past week with the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant. No evidence has emerged of officials hiding information in this catastrophe. But the vagueness and scarcity of details offered by the government and Tepco — and news that seems to grow worse each day — are fueling public anger and frustration.

"We don't know what is true. That makes us worried," said Taku Harada, chief executive of the Tokyo-based Internet startup Orinoco. Harada said his many American friends are being urged to leave the capital while the Japanese government says the area is safe, probably to avoid triggering panic.

The difference is unsettling, he said. He has rented an office in Osaka 250 miles (400 kilometers) to the southwest to give his 12 employees the option of leaving Tokyo.

"We still don't know the long-term effects of radiation," he said. "That's a big question."

Tokyo Electric Power Co. official Takeshi Makigami says experts are doing their utmost to get the reactors under control.

"We are doing all that is possible," he told reporters.

Worried that over-dependence on imported oil could undermine Japan's humming economy, the government threw its support into nuclear power, and the industry boomed in profile and influence. The country has 54 nuclear plants, which provide 30 percent of the nation's energy needs, is building two more and studying proposals for 12 more plants.

Before Friday's earthquake and tsunami that triggered the Fukushima crisis and sent the economy reeling, Japan's 11 utility companies, many of them nuclear plant operators, were worth $139 billion on the stock market.

Tepco — the utility that supplies power for Japan's capital and biggest city — accounted for nearly a third of that market capitalization, though its shares have been battered since the disasters, falling 65 percent over the past week to 759 yen ($9.6) Thursday. Last month, it got a boost from the government, which renewed authorization for Tepco to operate Fukushima's 40-year-old Unit 1 reactor for another 10 years.

With such strong government support and a culture that ordinarily frowns upon dissent, regulators tend not to push for rigorous safety, said Amory Lovins, an expert on energy policy and founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute.

"You add all that up and it's a recipe for people to cut corners in operation and regulation," Lovins said.

The United States, Japan's close ally, has also raised questions about the coziness between Japanese regulators and industry and implicitly questioned Tokyo's forthrightness over the Fukushima crisis. The director of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. ambassador this week issued bleaker assessments about the dangers at the plant than the Japanese government or Tepco.

Competence and transparency issues aside, some say it's just too dangerous to build nuclear plants in an earthquake-prone nation like Japan, where land can liquefy during a major temblor.

"You're building on a heap of tofu," said Philip White of Tokyo-based Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, a group of scientists and activists who have opposed nuclear power since 1975.

"There is absolutely no reason to trust them," he said of those that run Japan's nuclear power plants.

Japan is haunted by memories of past nuclear accidents.

—In 1999, fuel-reprocessing workers were reported to be using stainless steel buckets to hand-mix uranium in flagrant violation of safety standards at the Tokaimura plant. Two workers later died in what was the deadliest accident in the Japanese industry's history.

— At least 37 workers were exposed to low doses of radiation at a 1997 fire and explosion at a nuclear reprocessing plant operated in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo. The operator, Donen, later acknowledged it had initially suppressed information about the fire.

— Hundreds of people were exposed to radiation and thousands evacuated in the more serious 1999 Tokaimura accident involving JCO Co. The government assigned the accident a level 4 rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale ranging from 1 to 7, with 7 being most serious.

— In 2007, a powerful earthquake ripped into Japan's northwest coast, killing at least eight people and causing malfunctions at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant, including radioactive water spills, burst pipes and fires. Radiation did not leak from the facility.

Tepco has safety violations that stretch back decades. In 1978, control rods at one Fukushima reactor dislodged but the accident was not reported because utilities were not required to notify the government of such accidents. In 2006, Tepco reported a negligible amount of radioactive steam seeped from the Fukushima plant — and blew beyond the compound.

Now with the public on edge over safety, Tatsumi Tanaka, head of Risk Hedge and a crisis management expert, believes the government would find it difficult to approve new plants in the immediate future.

Tanaka says that, true to Japan's dismal nuclear power record, officials bungled the latest crisis, failing to set up a special crisis team and appoint credible outside experts.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., regulators and the government spokesman have been holding nationally televised news conferences, sometimes several a day, on the latest developments at the Fukushima plant.

But the reactors have been volatile, changing by the hour, with multiple explosions, fires and leaks of radiation. The utility, regulators and government spokesmen often send conflicting information, adding to the confusion and the perception they aren't being forthright, Tanaka says.

"They are only making people's fears worse," he said. "They need to study at the onset what are the possible scenarios that might happen in about five stages and then figure out what the response should be."

Associated Press writers Joji Sakurai and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iU29-CtBza8xA01r9IzPwksyP1WQ?docId=9e518d4998224fd8b705cc3fe9903eb6

[Wetcoaster]

The latest on the attempts to cool down the reactors and the fuel rods in the containment pond:

1032: Japanese police were unable to use a water cannon to help release water on to the Fukushima nuclear power plant because of high radiation levels, the country's NHK broadcaster reports, according to AFP.

1234: Japan will start dropping water from the air on the No 2 reactor of the damaged nuclear\rpower plant on Friday, the country's nuclear safety agency has said, Reuters reports.

1256: TepcoDisaster tweets: "Water shot from trucks effective in cooling fuel pool as steam rose at #Fukushima Daiichi No.1 Nuclear power plant."

1450: The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, is travelling to Japan to discuss the situation. Before boarding his plane, he told reporters the message he wanted to give to the Japanese people: "This is a very serious accident and it's bad. Japan is alone. Japan is not alone, the international community is standing by Japan. We have got lots of offers of assistance to Japan... Lots of countries and people have worries, they have their nationals in Japan, they are worrying about the radiation, radioactivity levels and we are getting information from Japan, but improved flow of information is highly appreciated."

1506: The British government's chief scientific adviser, Sir John Beddington, has said he's extremely worried about developments at the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. He expressed concern about the loss of water covering spent nuclear fuel rods - saying that if they heated up, they could start to emit high levels of radiation. The Japanese authorities are dousing the site in water, to try to cool in it.

1517: Workers at the nuclear plant in Japan that was crippled by last Friday's earthquake have been laying new power cables to the pumps that should be keeping the reactors cool. The BBC's Chris Hogg says it will be Friday before officials know whether they know whether they can get electricity through them. He says this however the first good news they've had in days.

1521: The BBC's Chris Hogg says the plan is to use the helicopter "water-bombing" again on Friday in an attempt to cool down the nuclear plant. He says the water company has said the method proved quite effective on Thursday and is worth trying again.

1533: The BBC's health correspondent Fergus Walsh says that there is alot that we still don't know, but that what is clear is that the risks beyond the exclusion zone are very small indeed. Even in the worst case scenario, even if there was a meltdown, he says the risk would not extend beyond the exclusion zone. This is not another Chernobyl, he says.

1534: Tomohiko Taniguchi, former government spokesman - now a professor at Keio University - told the BBC World Service that he felt the Japanese government has initially failed to grasp the seriousness of the disaster and could have done more. However he said that many Japanese were too preoccupied with the immediate impact of the disaster to criticise the administration. "It's like Japan is being stabbed by a gigantic knife. And it's still bleeding because the death toll is on the rise constantly. At the same time we have been very nervous about this possible near-Chernobyl situation. So there is no room psychologically for them to criticise the Japanese government because there are much, much more important things to do."\r

1556: The International Atomic Energy Agency says the situation at Fukushima remains very serious but no significant worsening since Wednesday.

1734: Unconfirmed reports on Reuters suggest that the IAEA was told by Japanese authorities that engineers were able to lay an external power cable to the nuclear plant's unit 2.

1740: Reuters is also reporting that the IAEA says that Japan plans to reconnect power to unit 2 of the Fukushima's nuclear plant once the spraying of water on unit 3 has been completed.

1829: The World Health Organisation (WHO) has issued fresh guidelines on how to minimise exposure to radiation that can cause cancers. The agency said measures taken by Japan, such as its evacuation measures, so far meet its public health recommendations.

1836: An official at Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the plant operator, said the pool at the no 4 reactor at Fukushima "seemed to have water" on Wednesday, based on aerial observations carried out by the military helicopters, AFP reports. Another TEPCO spokesman said: "We have not confirmed how much water was left inside but we have not had information that spent fuel rods are exposed."

1844: Japanese authorities have informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that engineers were able to lay an external grid power line cable to unit 2 of Fukushima nuclear plant, according to a statement on the IAEA website.The operation was completed at 0830 GMT.

1847: Engineers plan to reconnect power to unit 2 once the spraying of water on the unit 3 reactor building is completed, the statement says. "The spraying of water on the unit 3 reactor building was temporarily stopped at 1109 GMT (2009 local time) on 17 March. The IAEA continues to liaise with the Japanese authorities and is monitoring the situation as it evolves," the statement adds.

1849: Engineers hope that they can restore power so it is possible to restart the pumps needed to pour cold water on overheating fuel rods at the plant.

1908: More from the US: CBS News reports that travellers from Japan have triggered the radiation detectors at Chicago's O'Hare airport. Though the report does stress the levels were very low.

[Heretic]

Saw this quote today about the reactor:

"The worst-case scenario doesn't bear mentioning and the best-case scenario keeps getting worse."

[Wetcoaster]

These graphics give an idea of the number of people affected (and potentially affected if the situation worsens) by the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

[Wetcoaster]

The tsunami generated by the 9.0 earthquake off Honshu, Japan has caused damage in Hawaii as well but not on the scale of course that Japan suffered. Much of the damage was on the Big Island on the Kona coast. Damage estimates are in the tens of millions of dollars but it will effect Hawaii's tourism industry going forward.

The biggest economic hit Hawaii will take will likely be in the tourist industry since the many Japanese visitors are likely to be curtailed.

Hawaii's loss of Japanese tourism dollars after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis is "going to be terrible," Hawaiian Gov. Neil Abercrombie said.

Japanese, who spent $2 billion last year and are Hawaii's No. 2 tourist group after Americans, will likely cut back travel significantly, Abercrombie said.

"The economic consequences will be severe for us," said Abercrombie, who was elected in November after serving 20 years in Congress. "It's going to be terrible. It's something we have to come to grips with."

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2011/03/17/Japan-crisis-terrible-for-Hawaii-tourism/UPI-89841300380178/#ixzz1GtSLJzif

Here are some photos taken on the Kona coast:

http://www.alohaupdate.com/2011/03/14/photos-from-kona-hawaii-tsunami-damage-march-2011/hawaii-tsunami-2011-2/

KAILUA-KONA — In his first trip to the neighbor islands since the tsunami ripped through Hawaii early Friday and caused damages estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars, Gov. Neil Abercrombie got some good news.

Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources Director William Aila Jr. informed the governor Tuesday that Kailua Pier was damaged by water pressure from beneath that caused cracks in the surface asphalt but that it was structurally sound and can begin accepting cruise ship visitors.

Abercrombie, Aila and Big Island Mayor Billy Kenoi traveled together through parts of West Hawaii Tuesday. Abercrombie viewed the King Kamehameha Kona Beach Hotel, which has had to shutter its beach-front restaurant but otherwise avoided catastrophic damage. He went to Alii Drive, where he checked out the pier and saw the Kona Inn closed for repairs to tsunami damage. He went to Kealakekua Bay and to Honokahua Marina.

Lastly, he visited the Hawaii County Council at the West Hawaii Civic Center. He and Aila testified at the Committee on Human Services, Social Services and Public Safety.

"We do appreciate the fact that you've been a great quarterback during this crisis and we thank you for that," Council Chair Dominic Yagong told Abercrombie.

"It's easy to quarterback when you've got a great team," Abercrombie demurred.

Afterward, before he departed for Maui, the governor expressed optimism about repairs on the Big Island.

"Everything seems to have operated in a very fortunate way," Abercrombie told Civil Beat in an interview in the Council chambers. "Down there at Manini Beach, the overwhelming majority of places are OK. There may be some wave action that took place, that kind of thing, but aside of the houses at the end of the spit there, everything seems to be fine."

Manini Beach on Kealakekua Bay suffered some of the worst damage, with some houses knocked off their foundations and one washed entirely into the ocean.

Asked for the lesson he's learned from the tsunami, Abercrombie said it shows that there are basic government functions that can't be cut, no matter what the budgetary situation may be.

"We all have to work together. We all have to be prepared to contribute. And we all have to understand that in this time of economic stress which is bound to follow in the wake of the catastrophe in Japan, that it's not going to be easy but it's something that if we show the same kind of kokua for each other in the long run that we showed for each other in the wake of the tsunami warning, I think we'll get through. I'm confident."

http://www.civilbeat.com/articles/2011/03/15/9667-on-tour-of-hawaii-abercrombie-finds-good-news-in-kona/

[Wetcoaster]

An article on the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami upon Japan's elderly survivors and evacuees as cold and snow hamper efforts in the most affected areas. Some elderly hospital patients and care home residents have been abandoned while others are freezing to death and unable to get medications or food.

The devastating impact of the Japanese earthquake on the country's ageing population was exposed on Thursday as dozens of elderly people were confirmed dead in hospitals and residential homes as heating fuel and medicine ran out.

In one particularly shocking incident, Japan's self-defence force discovered 128 elderly people abandoned by medical staff at a hospital six miles from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. Most of them were comatose and 14 died shortly afterwards. Eleven others were reported dead at a retirement home in Kesennuma because of freezing temperatures, six days after 47 of their fellow residents were killed in the tsunami. The surviving residents of the retirement home in Kesennuma were described by its owner, Morimitsu Inawashida, as "alone and under high stress". He said fuel for their kerosene heaters was running out.

Almost a quarter of Japan's population are 65 or over, and hypothermia, dehydration and respiratory diseases are taking hold among the elderly in shelters, many of whom lost their medication when the wave struck, according to Eric Ouannes, general director of Doctors Without Borders' Japan affiliate.

This comes after Japan's elderly people bore the brunt of the initial impact of the quake and tsunami, with many of them unable to flee to higher ground.

Although the people from the hospital near Fukushima were moved by the self-defence forces to a gymnasium in Iwaki, there were reports that conditions were not much better there. An official for the government said it felt "helpless and very sorry for them". "The condition at the gymnasium was horrible," said Cheui Inamura. "No running water, no medicine and very, very little food. We simply did not have means to provide good care."

Japan's deepening humanitarian crisis came as the military was enlisted to try to douse the damaged nuclear reactors and spent fuel pools at the Fukushima plant using helicopters and high-powered hoses. Chinook helicopters dropped several tonnes of water, much of which seemed to miss its target. More workers were drafted into the danger zone to prevent the spread of radiation and the plant's operator said it had managed to connect an electric cable to allow it to restart critical water pumps in one of the six units.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, Gregory Jaczko, said the commission believed "radiation levels are extremely high" at the plant, while Britain said citizens should not go any closer than 50 miles from the plant, much further than Japan's recommendation to stay 12 miles away or take shelter indoors if evacuation was not possible within an 18-mile radius.

Sir John Beddington, Britain's chief scientific adviser, also said he believed cooling water essential to preventing radioactive emissions from the spent fuel pools alongside reactor 4 had almost totally evaporated and he was "extremely worried" the storage pools at reactors 5 and 6 were also leaking.

The Japanese government revised the estimated disaster death toll up from 10,000 to 15,000. It confirmed that 5,178 people had died and 2,285 were injured. The number of missing was increased to 8,913 from 7,844. Almost 200,000 households regained electricity, but this left more than 450,000 without power. Approximately 2.5m households still do not have access to water.

Pat Fuller, of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which met on Thursday in the earthquake zone to plan longer term relief with the Red Cross of Japan, said the lack of heating oil was critical.

"They don't have enough kerosene to run heaters for all the evacuation centres," he said. "Only a small percentage of the petrol stations are functioning which affects efforts to get food back into the shops. There had been an outbreak of gastric flu at one health centre we visited and if that hits old people there could be serious complications."

Search and rescue teams began scaling back their operations as relatives began to lose hope of finding missing loved ones alive. In the town of Kamaishi, American and British teams completed their final sweeps, and Japanese mechanical diggers began the task of clearing collapsed homes, offices and stores.

Crews found more than a dozen bodies, some trapped beneath homes flipped on their roofs, another at the wheel of his overturned car. In three days of searching the battered coast, they found no survivors. "We have no more tasks," said Pete Stevenson, a firefighter heading Britain's 70-strong team. "The Japanese government have told us they are now moving from search and rescue to the recovery phase."

Heather Heath, a British firefighter, said: "There are probably dozens of bodies we just can't reach. The water can force people under floorboards and into gaps we can't search. It's such a powerful force."

In Rikuzentakata Katsuya Maiya, whose home was hit by the tsunami, said he had accepted he would not find his 71-year old sister-in-law and her husband. The elderly couple fled their home on foot, but they could not keep up with their neighbours and fell behind as the tsunami rushed in.

"I think there is no hope," he said. "The only thing that I can do is wait until members of the Japanese self-defence force collect their bodies."

The very young too were suffering. Save the Children on Thursday reached Ishinomaki, Nobiru and Onagawa, north of Sendai, and reported children living in miserable conditions. "There were some terrible scenes, in some places like Onagawa there was nothing left," said Ian Woolverton, who led the mission. "In other places like Ishinomaki we found children in evacuation centres huddled around kerosene lamps."

The charity said they met Kazuki Seto, eight, at an evacuation centre not far from Sendai. He told them: "We are really worried about the nuclear power plants. We are very afraid of nuclear radiation. That's why we don't play outside." Another, Yasu Hiro, 10, added: "We know about the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we are very scared. It makes us really worry. If it explodes it is going to be terrible."

New footage also emerged of the tsunami striking last Friday, filmed by a local reporter who fled to safety as the wave swept in. The footage showed a wave crashing down a street moments after he found safety on a staircase.

Buildings and cars were swept away, while a father and two children were stranded on the side of an upturned car. A woman clung to a tree. She was rescued using a fire hose. "Thank you. Thank you. I thought I was going to die," she said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/17/japanese-earthquake-toll-ageing-population-deaths

[Wetcoaster]

Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News:

For a while now it has appeared that delivering electrical power to Fukushima Daiichi power station offered the best hope of stabilising things.

Provided that the station's electrical systems are intact and its pumps are still functional, it should become possible to pump water back into the fuel storage ponds in reactor buildings 3 and 4, and to improve the flow into the damaged reactors themselves.

But it is also possible that the earthquake, tsunami, fires and explosions have knocked out some of this equipment.

Provided power can be restored across the complex, it appears possible that Fukushima Daiichi could be back under control within a few days.

[Justin.]

Those poor elderly people. I know the medical workers can't be blamed, but it sounds so barbaric, just leaving them to die together

[Señor Hoff]

Those poor elderly people. I know the medical workers can't be blamed, but it sounds so barbaric, just leaving them to die together

I watched a video on CTV news the other night...Im not sure what exactly was happening but it looked to me like a bunch of elderly people were being lead out of some building to the front yard...they were all sitting together. The tsunami was approaching and reaching higher and higher up the embankment the people were on. Some people were still carrying out people from the house until it was too late and they had to and try to move the old people waiting out front up the hill just feet from them....the water and debris kept getting closer and closer until the workers helping the old people could only watch as the water started dragging them away....they might have been disabled or real old people because they couldnt really move away from the water even though safety was feet away....crazy scene...people just standing there watching them get dragged off to certain death

[old_time_hockey]

The pics of kids is rough to see.

At our union meeting last night the members voted to donate $2500 to the Red Cross, $2000 to UNICEF Child Relief and $2500 to Doctors without Borders to directly aid the effort in Japan.

[Owen Nolan]

I cant believe we this could be comming our way and putting our health at risk..

[Truculence]

This is being aired in Japan to help kids understand what's going on.

Mod Edit: NOW that there has been some context given as to what this video actually is.......

Youtube: (Subbed) Nuclear Boy うんち・おならで例える原発解説

Edited March 18, 2011 by Bertuzzi Babe
Spelling

[Wetcoaster]

I cant believe we this could be comming our way and putting our health at risk..

Post #1140:

Here is the latest on radiation drift towards North America:

Low concentrations of radioactive particles are heading eastwards from Fukushima towards North America, a Swedish official is quoted as saying by Reuters. Lars-Erik De Geer, research director at the Swedish Defence Research Institute, a government agency, was citing data from a network of international monitoring stations, but stressed the levels were not dangerous for people.

The New York Times has an interactive graphic forecasting the plant's plume path, which shows how weather patterns might disperse radiation from Fukushima over the week.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/03/16/science/plume-graphic.html?ref=science

[Owen Nolan]

Post #1140:

I believe what they say a couple years down the road when I don't have cancer or radiation positioning..

[Femme.Canuck]

Here is some absolutely amazing and dramatic footage of people fleeing Sendai in wake of the Japan quake and tsunami. There are subtitles availabe for when the people are speaking. For me, this is the first time I've seen footage of people AS they are fleeing, from the first perspective, with their voices. Its quite something. The last minute or so, you can really feel the suffocation and force of the tsunami.

http://bcove.me/w2nmxda4

From TBC/JNN via Britain's Channel 4

Edited March 18, 2011 by P.OneOh