4-30-11 Plasma Lightning Volcano Eruption!!!

Pretty amazing electrical discharge eruption today at the volcano Sakurajima in Japan!

4/12/2011 Japan Magnitude 6.0 EPICENTER DIRECTLY AT FUKUSHIMA PLANT

Another up to date observation from watchman Duchsinse

4/11/2011 Japan "Aftershocks" intensifying. Japan SINKING.

A full month after the historic Earthquake of Japan, The aftershocks are becoming stronger and more numerous. This has been confirmed due to the entire island sinking. Please watch this report by respected observer, Duchsinse.

4/11/2011 NEW 7.1 JAPAN EARTHQUAKE! One Month After The Big One.

A new, STRONG earthquake (Reported as 7.1) has hit Japan, exactly one month after the historic, tsunami causing off-shore quake of March 2011. The quake hit near the already devastated area of Fukushima. New damage is still being investigated.

The USGS has reported it as a 6.6 and you can find a summery here http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc0002n9v.php

New Japan Destruction Visuals (Shipping Port)

Searching the new imagery available in Google Earth, of the post earthquake/tsunami Japan, I've found the astonishing sight of a shipping port which has been destroyed. Literally hundreds of huge shipping containers just tossed around and piled up by the waters. It's quite a dramatic sight.



Here is a GOOGLE EARTH LINK to fly down to the area.

Japan's ocean radiation hits 7.5 million times legal limit!!!!!!!

Thanks to Tokyo Electric flushing tens of thousands of tons of highly radio active water into the sea, Japan's ocean radiation has reached 7.5 million times legal limit. This comes a day after they told people it was still safe to eat the fish!

Reporting from Tokyo— The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant said Tuesday that it had found radioactive iodine at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a seawater sample taken near the facility, and government officials imposed a new health limit for radioactivity in fish.

The reading of iodine-131 was recorded Saturday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. Another sample taken Monday found the level to be 5 million times the legal limit. The Monday samples also were found to contain radioactive cesium at 1.1 million times the legal limit.

On Tuesday the company said the leak instead might be coming from a faulty joint where the pit meets a duct, allowing radioactive water to seep into a layer of gravel underneath. The utility said it would inject "liquid glass" into gravel in an effort to stop further leakage.

NEW Earthquakes for Japan, Alaska, and California. Sunday Morning 4-3-2011

Japan is still shaking. A series of 6.0 Earthquakes last Thursday was notable. And, now within the hour, there have been a several Quakes in Japan, Alaska and California, I'll take you through.

First, (while I organize) here is a screen capture of a pair of 5.1 and other quakes in the cluster which have just occurred.


Moving around the ring of fire, we see Alaska is shaking pretty good, with what seems like alot of little earthquakes. Many from this morning.


On down to Northren California. It looks like an Earthquake hit the Pacific Cost highway. You can still see the 4.1 south of yellow stone in the back ground.


There was a cluster, I zoomed down to. Thinking it could be fracture drilling ops, and sure enough, some kind of massively vented, pipeline facility is there. Looking around I realized the entire mountain region was an energy company installation. All the peaks are pipelined together in a huge 15 mile formation of remote mountain terrain. Earthquakes certainly caused by the unidentified, invasive, energy drilling company. There are no earthquakes where there are no machinery installations..




And there's as many of those as there are yellow dots.

Moving down to Southren California, there are more, recent clusters. Possibly similar insane practices of fracking a fault line! But I have not investigated yet. The point is, they happened in the same hour as the other new Quakes across the planet.

4/1/2011 NEW Earthquakes in Japan and Yellowstone.

Monitoring the sun and earth visualization services, I've noticed, within the hour, Northern Japan has had another, land based 5.1 Earthquake. ALSO, yesterday, there were a series of 4 earthquakes, all over 6.0, and in alignment to each other.




At the same time, Wyoming has had a 4.1 Earthquake just south of Yellowstone park.



These are sizable earthquakes.

Japan after earthquake visuals, now in Google Earth

Google LatLong: New imagery of Japan after the earthquake

3 weeks after (or into) the worst disaster the world has witnessed, the Japan Earthquake and tsunami, Google Earth imagery has now been updated.

You can see horribly dramatic areas of destruction where cities once were. I'll be updating this post with pictures as soon as I explore a bit.. The destruction is beyond imagination. You can jump into the update with this KML file

Japanese VOLCANO - Sakurajima ERUPTS AGAIN - March 23, 2011

Japanese VOLCANO - Sakurajima ERUPTS AGAIN - March 23, 2011



link to dowload the live movies from the Japanese volcanic agency:

http://volcanosakurajima.web.fc2.com/

BREAKING NEWS: NEW Nuclear event in Japan 3-22-11. Tokai Nuclear Power Plant

Radiation has been detected from the Tokai power plant south of the Fukushima Plant.
Not good news.

'Please continue to live well': Fukushima Fifty 'on suicide mission' to battle N-plant meltdown send haunting messages to families... as radioactive s

By Daily Mail Reporter


Dangerous work: Officials wearing protective clothing and respirators head towards the Fukushima nuclear plant

-Nuclear workers accept their fate 'like a death sentence'
-Fears for their health as one expert says it is 'perhaps a suicide mission'
-Radiation levels rise in Japan as crisis continues
-Power will be connected to knocked-out coolant pumping system 'within hours'
-Radioactive steam still billows from reactors and fuel storage pools after helicopter missions
-Police water cannons move in to spray overheating fuel rods
-Radioactive plume to hit U.S. west coast tomorrow
-17,000 British nationals could be evacuated as last-ditch efforts are made to stop nuclear catastrophe
-Foreign Office provides free-of-charge rescue flights from Tokyo
-FO's new 'worst case scenario' says radiation in capital could harm humans

Japan was today rallying behind the anonymous nuclear emergency workers at the stricken Fukushima power plant - as heartbreaking details of their plight emerged.

The 180 workers face soaring radiation levels as they make ever more desperate attempts to stop overheating reactors and spent fuel rods leaking more radiation into the atmosphere.

Some experts have speculated that they may be engaged in a suicide mission - or at least could suffer serious health problems for the rest of their lives - as helicopters and police riot control trucks are used to dump water on the reactors and exposed nuclear fuel storage pools.

National television has interviewed relatives of the workers, who the plant operators insist on keeping anonymous, with one woman saying her father had accepted his fate 'like a death sentence'.

A woman said her husband continued to work while fully aware he was being bombarded with radiation. He sent her an email saying: 'Please continue to live well, I cannot be home for a while.' The workers are known as the Fukushima Fifty because they rotate into contaminated areas in teams of that number.

Desperate efforts: Steam billows from the overheating reactor number three at the Fukushima nuclear plant today

Stricken: The latest satellite image of the Fukushima plant shows damage to the Units 1, 3, and 4 reactor buildings, with steam venting from the Unit 2 reactor and Unit 3 reactor buildings - while the diagram on the right shows a breakdown of the site's layout and a time line of events

Another email shown by newsreaders said: 'My father is still working at the plant ... they are running out of food...we think conditions are really tough. He says he has accepted his fate much like a death sentence.'

One girl tweeted in a message translated by ABC: 'My dad went to the nuclear plant, I've never seen my mother cry so hard. People at the plant are struggling, sacrificing themselves to protect you. Please dad come back alive.'

One lone woman worker, Michiko Otsuki, this week spoke up for her 'silent' colleagues on a Japanese social networking site to insist that they were 'not running away' as the crisis intensified.

She wrote in a blog translated by The Straits Times: 'People have been flaming [plant operators] Tepco, But the staff of Tepco have refused to flee, and continue to work even at the peril of their own lives. Please stop attacking us.'

'As a worker at Tepco and a member of the Fukushima No. 2 reactor team, I was dealing with the crisis at the scene until yesterday (Monday).'

'In the midst of the tsunami alarm (last Friday), at 3am in the night when we couldn't even see where we going, we carried on working to restore the reactors from where we were, right by the sea, with the realisation that this could be certain death,' she said.

'The machine that cools the reactor is just by the ocean, and it was wrecked by the tsunami. Everyone worked desperately to try and restore it.

'Fighting fatigue and empty stomachs, we dragged ourselves back to work.'

'There are many who haven't gotten in touch with their family members, but are facing the present situation and working hard.'


Preparing to go in: Fire engines and workers in white suits wait in a carpark near Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant today

Devastated: The badly damaged reactor four at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Green machinery can be seen through the ruined wall

Dr. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, told ABC: 'It's gotten worse. We're talking about workers coming into the reactor perhaps as a suicide mission and we may have to abandon ship.'

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko has also said that anyone who gets close to the plant could face potentially lethal doses of radiation.

Radiation levels across Japan are rising as the plant crisis continues. The country's science ministry said levels of 0.17 millisieverts per hour have been detected 30 kilometres north west of the plant - at the edge of the exclusion zone.

Anyone exposed to that level of radiation for six hours would absorb the maximum level of rays considered safe for one year - although there is no immediate danger to health.

Radiation levels at the plant are said to be 40 milisieverts per hour, although plant officials claim workers are being taken off emergency duties after being exposed to 250 milisieverts.

The national solidarity for the workers emerged as foreigners left the country in droves, with plans being drawn up to evacuate every British national in Japan amid mounting fears of a nuclear catastrophe.

The National Police Agency confirmed tonight that the death toll currently stands at 5,692, with 9,522 people still missing.

Thousands of Britons were last night warned to leave Tokyo and all other areas under threat of radiation poisoning after the Foreign Office updated its 'worst case scenario' projection.

New advice from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said that levels of radiation that would be potentially a harm to people's health could reach the city.

'The current situation is that on the plausible worst case assumptions we're dealing with, we're coming up with results that indicate the sort of health effects you might expect in Tokyo are such that they could be mitigated by very simple measures,' Sir John Beddington, the chief scientific adviser, told The Times.

'The risks are pretty modest. We can say that the level of dosage we expect is such that it could be adequately mitigated by things such as staying indoors while the plume passes.'

The Foreign Office is even chartering additional planes to ensure that all British citizens can leave the country on free-of-charge rescue flights - as thousands of terrified passengers cram into Tokyo airport attempting to flee.

The advice to flee – echoed by other countries around the world – followed a meeting of the Cabinet’s emergency Cobra committee to discuss the meltdown-threatened Fukushima nuclear plant.

It heightened suspicions that the crisis at the plant – already ranked the second-worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl – is worse than the Japanese authorities have publicly let on.

Two CH-47 Chinook helicopters began dumping seawater on the damaged reactor of Unit 3 at the Fukushima complex at 9.48am local time this morning as Defence Minister Toshifumi Kitazawa told reporters that emergency workers had no choice but to try the water dumps before it was too late.

The aircraft dumped at least four loads of at least 2,000 gallons each, aimed at the reactors and fuel storage pools, though much of the water appeared to be dispersed in the air.

The dumping was intended both to help cool the reactor and to replenish water in a pool holding spent fuel rods. The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said earlier that the pool was nearly empty, which might cause the rods to overheat.

There is however one ray of hope as plant officials said they could attach power to the knocked out coolant pumping system, perhaps within hours.

But a kilometre-long power line from the national grid will be connected to reactor two, which does not house spent fuel rods that are considered the biggest radiation risk.

American officials have also said that they believe the fuel holding pools at reactor three and four have boiled dry causing 'extremely high' radiation levels.

That means that nuclear fuel rods at both the reactors could overheat further and release more radiation.

Police water cannons - usually used in riot control - have also moved in to spray water into the storage pools, allowing emergency workers to keep further away from the radiation.

Even when removed from reactors, uranium rods are still extremely hot and must be cooled for months, possibly longer, to prevent them from heating up again and emitting radioactivity.

Emergency workers are struggling to keep a constant supply of water pumping into the holding pools and officials last night admitted that much of the monitoring equipment in the plant was broken and it was impossible to monitor the situation.

'We haven't been able to get any of the latest data at any spent fuel pools. We don't have latest water levels, temperatures, none of the latest information,' an official said. There are also frantic efforts to restore power to the coolant pumping system that was knocked out by the tsunami on Friday.

Desperate: A military helicopter dumps water onto the number three reactor at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant today

Dangerous mission: The helicopters dropped four loads on the reactor as pilots were restricted to 40 minutes flying time over the Fukushima plant. The missions have so far dropped 30 tonnes of sea water over the plant


Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said that along with the helicopter water drops, special police units would use water cannons - normally used to quell rioters - to spray water onto the Unit 4 storage pool. The high-pressure water cannons will allow emergency workers to stay farther away.

One French expert warned that the plant is just hours away from disaster. Thierry Charles of the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety told the Telegraph: 'The next 48 hours will be decisive. I am pessimistic because, since Sunday, I have seen that almost none of the solutions has worked.'

About 17,000 British nationals are thought to be in the country, mostly in Tokyo. Last night’s Foreign Office warning stopped short of ordering them to leave the country – a diplomatic gesture which will be welcomed by the Japanese government.

But officials conceded that in reality most Britons will have few options but to leave Japan if they want to heed the advice.

A UN body also predicted a radiation plume would hit the west coast of the USA by tomorrow. But experts said it would not cause health problems.

Thousands of Japanese citizens are already fleeing Tokyo for the south.
Officials yesterday insisted there was no significant risk to human health in Tokyo, which is less than 140 miles south of Fukushima.

But Europe’s energy chief Guenther Oettinger warned the huge plant was ‘effectively out of control’ – sparking fears of a meltdown, which could send a radioactive cloud into the atmosphere.

He warned of ‘further catastrophic events, which could pose a threat to the lives of people on the island’. Mr Oettinger predicted the dire situation could take a further turn for the worse ‘within hours’.

The Japanese public was also unconvinced by its government’s reassurances. The mayor of Minimisoma, which is 12 miles from the Fukushima plant, said: ‘We weren’t told when the first reactor exploded, we only heard about it on television. The government doesn’t tell us anything. We are isolated. They’re leaving us to die.’

Get out: A growing number of countries are joining the UK in organising flights to evacuate their citizens from Japan


The Foreign Office insisted there was ‘no real human health issue’ outside the 20-mile exclusion zone surrounding the plant.

But it warned that panic caused by the crisis meant there were ‘potential disruptions to the supply of goods, transport, communications, power and other infrastructure’ in Tokyo.

Officials confirmed that contingency plans were being drawn up for an airlift of British nationals if the crisis worsens.

The United States is also evacuating the family members of officials stationed in Japan.

The warning came as the Japanese made the increasingly desperate attempts to contain the crisis at the Fukushima plant.

A core team of 180 emergency workers has been at the forefront of the struggle at the plant, rotating in and out of the complex to try to reduce their radiation exposure.

But experts said that anyone working close to the reactors was almost certainly being exposed to radiation levels that could, at least, give them much higher cancer risks.

'I don't know any other way to say it, but this is like suicide fighters in a war,' said Keiichi Nakagawa, associate professor of the Department of Radiology at University of Tokyo Hospital.

Yesterday a further fire broke out, two more reactors were reported to be overheating and concerns were growing about two pools used to store spent radioactive fuel. If a reactor overheats – and its casing is breached – dangerous radioactive material could be blown for miles. Several countries advised their citizens to evacuate.

France, one of the world’s leading users of nuclear energy, said its citizens should get out Japan. Industry Minister Eric Besson said: ‘Let’s not beat about the bush. They have visibly lost essential control. That is our analysis, even if it’s not what they are saying.’

Mounting anger: A father and his young child have their radiation level checked at a community centre in Tokaimura, northern Japan, left, while a passenger from Japan passes through a scanner to check radiation levels at Incheon international airport in South Korea

French Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet described the crisis as ‘catastrophic’ and said the latest information ‘does not lead to optimism’.

There are 2,000 French still in the Tokyo area. Australia also urged its citizens to consider leaving Tokyo and the quake-affected areas.

And the U.S. advised all Americans living within 50 miles of Fukishima to evacuate or take shelter indoors.

Russia said the crisis was moving towards a grim conclusion.

Sergei Kiriyenko, who presides over the bulk of the country’s nuclear facilities, declared: ‘Unfortunately, the situation is developing under the worst scenario.’

Explosions rocked the site on Saturday and Monday when hydrogen gas – released to ease pressure inside the sealed cores – ignited at reactors 1 and 3. On Monday hydrogen blasts hit reactor 2 and reactor 4, damaging its roof.

Experts believe that the reactor 2 blast cracked the 80-inch steel and concrete containment unit surrounding the radioactive core – triggering a radiation leak.

Last night temperatures were rising out of control in reactors 5 and 6. Scientists are also concerned about falling water levels in two tanks used to store and cool spent fuel rods.

Water in at least one of the pools is boiling. If its rods are exposed to the air they could overheat, releasing radioactive material into the air.

Steam rose from the pool alongside reactor 3 yesterday. Nuclear experts said the solutions being proposed to prevent leaks were ‘last-ditch efforts’.

But they added that if temperatures inside the reactors are kept down, the plant could be safe within a week.

The chief of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Gregory Jaczko, warned that all the cooling water had gone from one of the spent fuel pools.

That would mean there is nothing to stop the fuel rods getting hotter and ultimately melting down and if the outer shell of the rods ignite with enough force, it could propel the radioactive fuel inside over a wide area.

'I hope my information is wrong,' said Jaczko. 'It's a terrible tragedy for Japan.'

Japan's nuclear safety agency and Tokyo Electric Power, which operates the complex, denied the claim and utility spokesman Hajime Motojuku said the 'condition is stable' at Unit 4.

Earlier, however, another utility spokesman contradicted that by saying the officials' greatest concerns were the spent fuel pools, which lack the protective shells that reactors have.

'We haven't been able to get any of the latest data at any spent fuel pools,' said Masahisa Otsuki.

'We don't have the latest water levels, temperatures, none of the latest information for any of the four reactors.'

But they added that if temperatures inside the reactors are kept down, the plant could be safe within a week.

The chief of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Gregory Jaczko, warned that all the cooling water had gone from one of the spent fuel pools.

That would mean there is nothing to stop the fuel rods getting hotter and ultimately melting down and if the outer shell of the rods ignite with enough force, it could propel the radioactive fuel inside over a wide area.


'I hope my information is wrong,' said Jaczko. 'It's a terrible tragedy for Japan.'

Japan's nuclear safety agency and Tokyo Electric Power, which operates the complex, denied the claim and utility spokesman Hajime Motojuku said the 'condition is stable' at Unit 4.

Earlier, however, another utility spokesman contradicted that by saying the officials' greatest concerns were the spent fuel pools, which lack the protective shells that reactors have.

'We haven't been able to get any of the latest data at any spent fuel pools,' said Masahisa Otsuki.

'We don't have the latest water levels, temperatures, none of the latest information for any of the four reactors.'


Source:dailymail

'They've lost control': French claim Japan is hiding full scale of nuclear disaster as emergency teams desperately fire water cannon at reactors from

By David Derbyshire


-Workers battling nuclear meltdown evacuated today after radiation levels increased
-Police water cannon commandeered to spray complex
-Attempts to dump water on reactors by helicopter fail
-6.0 magnitude aftershock off Chiba, east of Tokyo, causes further tremors today
-In Europe, 500 bone marrow transplant centres put on standby to treat victims from Japan
-The plant rocked by second fire in No 4 unit and two more explosions, bringing the total to four
-France’s Nuclear Safety Authority ranks crisis second only in gravity to Chernobyl in 1986

Damaged: This dramatic pictures shows for the first time the damage wreaked upon the Fukushima plant which was today shrouded in smoke and steam bellowing from the damaged third and fourth reactors


Japan's stricken nuclear power plant was abandoned today, as soaring radiation forced emergency workers to flee for their lives and authorities were reduced to spraying reactors with water cannon from afar.

All 50 emergency workers who had been fighting to keep overheating reactors cool were pulled back 500 yards from the complex as radiation levels became too dangerous.

And in an extraordinary attack, the French government accused the Japanese of losing control of the situation and hiding the full scale of the disaster.

Military helicopters made a failed attempt to drop water on the reactors from above, amid desperate efforts to cool nuclear fuel. Police water cannons usually used in riot control were even requested to spray the site from long range.

The emergency teams had been pumping sea water into reactors using fire engines, but those efforts are thought to have stopped as the workers were pulled out.

Fears of 'an apocalypse' were raised by European officials as radiation levels soared . In another attack, French Industry Minister Eric Besson said:'Let's not beat about the bush. They have visibly lost the essential of control (of the situation). That is our analysis, in any case, it's not what they are saying.'

In a sign of mounting panic, Cabinet Secretary Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano has already warned that the long-range cooling efforts may not work.

He said: 'It's not so simple that everything will be resolved by pouring in water. We are trying to avoid creating other problems.' The emergency workers are reportedly preparing to return to the complex.

Destroyed: Damage after an earthquake and tsunami at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, is seen in this satellite image taken 9:35 am local time (0035 GMT)

Crisis: A cloud of white smoke can be seen rising from the nuclear power plant today as workers battling to control the chaos were evacuated after soaring radiation levels

Desperate measures: A Japanese military helicopter scoops water from the Pacific, which it later attempted to drop on overheating reactors


More than 140,000 residents within 19 miles of the plant were ordered to stay indoors - in addition to the 180,000 already evacuated from the immediate area. Terrified families clogged roads as they tried to flee.

And The French government urged its nationals living in Tokyo to leave the country or head to southern Japan due to the risk of radiation from an earthquake-crippled nuclear power plant to the north of the capital.

The French embassy in Tokyo said in a statement that its advisory applied with immediate effect to those French nationals who were not obliged to remain in the city. It added that it had asked Air France to mobilise planes currently in Asia to evacuate French citizens, and two were already on their way.

On Tuesday, a fire broke out in the same reactor's fuel storage pond - an area where used nuclear fuel is kept cool - causing radioactivity to be released into the atmosphere. TEPCO said the new blaze erupted because the initial fire had not been fully extinguished.

The turn of events caused European energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger to warn that Tokyo had almost lost control of events. ‘There is talk of an apocalypse and I think the word is particularly well chosen,’ he told the European Parliament.

But just before 4am this morning the Japanese government said that the fire which had raged for around seven hours had been brought under control.

The Japanese government later ordered emergency workers to withdraw from its stricken nuclear power complex today amid a surge in radiation.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the workers, who have been dousing the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant with seawater in a frantic effort to stabilise their temperatures, had no choice but to pull back from the most dangerous areas.

Screening: A woman is checked with a Geiger counter at a public welfare centre in Hitachi City, Ibaraki

Extreme measures: There are temporaryradiation cleaning shelter, set up by across the affected area including Nihonmatsu city in Fukushima

Potentially exposed: Women, one holding her dog, are scanned for radiation at a temporary evacuation centre for residents living near the Fukushima plant


'The workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now,' Mr Edano said, as smoke billowed above the crippled complex. 'Because of the radiation risk we are on stand-by.'

Mr Edano warned that helicopters drafted in to tackle the nuclear spills may not work. He said: 'It's not so simple that everything will be resolved by pouring in water. We are trying to avoid creating other problems,' he said.

'We are actually supplying water from the ground, but supplying water from above involves pumping lots of water and that involves risk. We also have to consider the safety of the helicopters above,' he said.


Testing: Workers in protective white suits screen worried evacuees at a radiation contamination centre yesterday


Life and death: A woman reacts to news that a relative has died, left, and a baby is checked for signs of radiation, right


The alarm spread worldwide. In Europe, some 500 bone marrow transplant centres were put on standby to treat any victims from Japan. And in India, officials demanded that imported Japanese goods be screened for radiation contamination.

The plant was yesterday rocked by a fire and two more explosions - bringing the total to four. One damaged the concrete and steel walls protecting reactor 2 – as concerns grew that the casing could split and potentially send out a cloud of dangerous radiation.

Aftershocks continue to hit the country, and a 6.0 magnitude tremor struck in the Pacific just off Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo, today, raised concerns that further damage would be caused to the already-weakened container walls of four reactors at the Fukushima plant.

Hajimi Motujuku, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), said the outer housing of the containment vessel at the No 4 unit at the complex caught fire.

Bustle: Passengers wait to leave at the Tokyo International Airport, some on any plane they can

Chaos: Smoke and steam billows from the damaged third and fourth reactors at the Fukushima plant, while right, hundreds of drivers desperate to flee the region pile on to the roads

At risk: Evacuees from the 18-mile radius around the plant are screened for radiation exposure at a testing centre yesterday


Efforts to cool overheating reactors were temporarily suspended after the levels were deemed dangerous to human health.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the workers, who were dousing the reactors with seawater in a frantic effort to stabilize their temperatures, had no choice except to withdraw.

'The workers cannot carry out even minimal work at the plant now,' Edano said. 'Because of the radiation risk we are on standby.' Radiation levels had gone down later in the day but it was not immediately clear if the workers had been allowed back in.

Meanwhile, France’s Nuclear Safety Authority said the disaster now equated to a six on the seven-point international scale for nuclear accidents, ranking the crisis second only in gravity to Chernobyl in 1986.


The authority’s chief Andre-Claude Lacoste said: ‘It is very clear that we are at a level six. We are clearly in a catastrophe.’

In desperation, Tokyo Electric Power, which is responsible for the Fukushima plant, asked U.S. helicopters to drop water on to the building in an attempt to cool a reactor, as radiation levels are too high for people to approach it.

Levels at the site peaked at a dangerous 400 millisieverts yesterday – four times the level that can trigger cancer. However, they had fallen again by the end of the day. Japan ordered a 30-mile no fly zone over the exclusion zone to stop the spread of radiation.


Source:dailymail

Japan's apocalypse now: Rescuers pick their way through a wasteland of bodies, wreckage and people washing in rivers

By Daily Mail Reporter


-70-year-old woman found alive in house that had been washed away by the tsunami
-Japan injects £60.8bn into money markets after Nikkei plunges by more than 10 per cent
-Bread, tinned goods and batteries growing scarce as Japanese panic buy amid nuclear crisis
-Fears for hundreds of Britons believed missing. FO expresses 'serious concern' for at least 50


Wiped out: Rescue workers are dwarfed by the scale of the rubble as they pick their way through the shattered city of Otsuchi


With millions of people without electricity, thousands missing and warnings of an imminent second earthquake, the task for Japanese authorities is too daunting to imagine.

Some 3,000 people have now been confirmed dead since last week’s earthquake and subsequent tsunami but officials believe the death toll could rise into the tens of thousands, with a further 2,000 bodies washing up on the shores of north-east Japan yesterday.

Bodies wrapped in blue tarpaulins were laid on military stretchers and lined up for collection while panic-buying has begun in Japan amid fears of a second quake and growing concern about nuclear leaks.

And tonight there were fresh fears over the possibility of a full-scale nuclear disaster as the operator of stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant said a fire has broken out again at its No. 4 reactor unit.

United in death: The bodies of victims at a village destroyed by the tsunami in Rikuzentakata (left) and the wreckage of Toyota Yaris at the port of Sendai

Firefighting: Ships try to extinguish a blaze at oil refinery tanks in Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, which has been burning since Friday's earthquake and tsunami

Rescue: Japanese relief workers carry a man who survived being buried alive for five days in Ishimaki (left) and a truck dangles from a collapsed bridge in Ishinomaki, northern Japan

Precarious: A house perches on top of a bridge in Ishinomaki after being swept away by the tsunami


Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Hajimi Motujuku says the blaze erupted early Wednesday in the outer housing of the reactor's containment vessel.

The bad news came as survivors continue to struggle to find food and water as supplies run low. There have been major power outages since the double disaster, many planned to preserve resources.

As the stock market plunges and the government warns it is receiving just a fraction of the emergency aid it needs, it is unclear how Japan can even begin to tackle the destruction.

The level of desolation is on an epic-scale with many towns completely destroyed. A shattered infrastructure makes it almost impossible to move heavy lifting equipment and rescue crews have struggled to reach the worst hit areas.

The death toll from last week's earthquake and tsunami jumped today as police confirmed the number killed had topped 3,300, although that grim news was overshadowed by a deepening nuclear crisis. Officials have said previously that at least 10,000 people may have died in Miyagi province alone.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that radiation had been released into the atmosphere after yet another explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, inside Number 2 reactor.

Eerie: Cars drive along one of the few passable roads in the devastated Minamisanriku where 10,000 people are feared dead

People carry the body of a victim through debris in Kesennuma, Miyagi, northern Japan

Squatting amid the ruins: A woman cooks for her family in front of their devastated house in Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture (left) while an older survivor swaddles herself in blankets and gloves at makeshift shelter at Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture


Explosions had already occurred in the Number 1 and Number 3 reactors. Number 4 reactor is also on fire and there are fears for those who have not yet made it outside the 12-mile exclusion zone.

Rescuers have pulled a 70-year-old woman from her the wreckage of her home , four days after it was demolished in the Japanese quake.

The rescue of the elderly Sai Abe and a younger man pulled from rubble elsewhere in the region were rare good news following Friday's disaster.

Mrs Abe's son said he had tried to save his mother but could not get her to flee her home in the port town of Otsuchi. His relief at her rescue, he said, was tempered by the fact that his father is still missing.

'I couldn't lift her up, and she couldn't escape because her legs are bad,' Hiromi Abe said. 'My feelings are complicated, because I haven't found my father.'

Ship out of water: A boat dumped in the street in Hishonomaki, Miyagi, after being swept inshore by the tsunami

Heart of the wasteland: Japanese survivors of Friday's earthquake and tsunami walk under umbrellas through the leveled city of Minamisanriku

Swept away: A house drifts in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after being hit by the tsunami (left) while people are forced to wash their clothes by a river at Otsuchi, northeastern Japan

Vanished: An astounding aerial view of the tsunami-devastated town of Rikuzentakata shows the full scale of the damage. Very little remains

Match stick city: Heavy machines crawl through the rubble in Rikuzentakata (left) while a rescue crew surveys the damage in Ofunato, northeastern Japan

Mrs Abe was suffering from hypothermia and sent to a hospital, but appeared to have no life-threatening injuries.

Another survivor, described as being in his 20s, was pulled from a building further down the coast in the city of Ishimaki after rescue workers heard him calling for help.

Conditions for those still alive in the rubble worsened as a cold front arrived today, further pushing down temperatures. Snow is forecast over the next few days
Millions of people spent a fourth night with little food, water or heating in near-freezing temperatures as they dealt with the loss of homes and loved ones. Asia's richest country has not seen such hardship since the Second World War.

Hajime Sato, a government official in Iwate prefecture, one of the hardest-hit, said deliveries of supplies were only 10 per cent of what is needed. Body bags and coffins were running so short that the government may turn to foreign funeral homes for help, he said.

Indonesian geologist Hery Harjono, who dealt with the 2004 Asian tsunami, said it would be ‘a miracle really if it turns out to be less than 10,000’ dead.

The 2004 tsunami killed 230,000 people - but only 184,000 bodies were found.

The impact of the earthquake and tsunami dragged down stock markets. The benchmark Nikkei 225 stock average plunged for a second day today, nosediving more than 10 per cent to close at 8,605.15 while the broader Topix lost more than 8 per cent.

To reduce the damage, Japan's central bank made two cash injections totalling 8 trillion yen (£60.8 billion) into the money markets today.

Initial estimates put repair costs in the tens of billions of dollars, costs that are likely to add to a massive public debt which , at 200 per cent of gross domestic product, is the biggest among industrialised nations.

The pulverised coast has been hit by hundreds of aftershocks since Friday, the latest a 6.2 magnitude quake which was followed by a fresh tsunami scare yesterday.

As sirens wailed, soldiers abandoned their search operations and told people on the devastated shoreline to run to higher ground.

The warning turned out to be a false alarm.

‘It’s a scene from hell, absolutely nightmarish,’ said Patrick Fuller, of the International Red Cross Federation.

‘The situation here is just beyond belief. Almost everything has been flattened.’

Pictures released by NASA shows the Japanese city of Ishinomaki (left) after the tsunami and in 2008 (right). Water is dark blue, plant-covered land is red, exposed earth is tan, and the city is silver.

Japan Red Cross president Tadateru Konoe added: ‘After my long career in the Red Cross where I have seen many disasters and catastrophes, this is the worst I have ever seen.’

The Japanese government and aid agencies are struggling to ferry food, water and medicines to survivors after panic-buying stripped shelves bare in the few shops left standing.

Far outside the disaster zone, stores are running out of necessities, raising government fears that hoarding may impede the delivery of emergency food aid to those who really need it.

‘The situation is hysterical,’ said Tomonao Matsuo, spokesman for instant noodle maker Nissin Foods, which donated a million items including its Cup Noodles for disaster relief. ‘People feel safer just by buying Cup Noodles.’

The company is trying to boost production, despite earthquake damage which closed down its facilities in Ibaraki prefecture until today.

The frenzied buying is compounding supply problems from damaged and congested roads, stalled factories, reduced train service and other disruptions caused by Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Japan's north-east coast and the major tsunami it generated.

Officials have been overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis, with millions of people spending a fourth night without electricity, water, food or heat in near-freezing temperatures.

A ship is seen perched on top of a house in the tsunami devastated remains of Otsuchi, Iwate prefecture

Details of the scale of the disaster (left) while destroyed houses are seen in the river at a devastated area hit by earthquake and tsunami in Kesennuma (right)

Ghost town: A once thriving industrial town off the coast in notheast Japan that has now been decimated by the tsunami wave that washed over the region


Officials estimate that 430,000 people are living in emergency shelters or with relatives.

The government has sent 120,000 blankets, 120,000 bottles of water and 29,000 gallons of petrol plus food to the affected areas.

The stock market plunged over the likelihood of huge losses by Japanese industries including big names such as Toyota and Honda following the 9.0 magnitude quake on Friday.

Almost 2million households are without power in the freezing north and about 1.4million have no running water while drivers are waiting in queues for five hours for rationed petrol.

Grim: The Japanese army search for bodies in Higashimatsushima City, in Miyagi, the state where up to 10,000 people may have died

Clean up: Police walk in file down a hillside today into a coastal town in northeast Japan that has been flattened by the tsunami wave


Experts are now warning a second huge quake - almost as powerful as the first - could hit the country, triggering another tsunami.

The director of the Australian Seismological Centre, Dr Kevin McCue, told the Sydney Morning Herald that there had been more than 100 smaller quakes since Friday, and a larger aftershock was likely.

'Normally they happen within days.

'The rule of thumb is that you would expect the main aftershock to be one magnitude smaller than the main shock, so you would be expecting a 7.9.

'That's a monster again in its own right that is capable of producing a tsunami and more damage.'

In a rare piece of good news, a 70-year-old woman has been found alive four days after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in north-eastern Japan.

Osaka fire department spokesman Yuko Kotani said the woman was found inside her house which had been washed away by the tsunami in Iwate prefecture.

Her rescuers, from Osaka in western Japan, had been sent to the area for disaster relief.

Ms Kotani said the woman was conscious but suffering from hypothermia and was being treated in hospital. She would not give the woman's name.



Source:dailymail