http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8377506/Japan-earthquake-nuclear-disaster-feared-after-power-plant-explosion.html
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8377506/Japan-earthquake-nuclear-disaster-feared-after-power-plant-explosion.html>Japan earthquake: nuclear disaster feared after power plant 'explosion'Japan is battling to avoid a nuclear disaster after an explosion at a power plant in the aftermath of the country’s biggest earthquake and devastating tsunami. By Patrick Sawer <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/patrick-sawer/>, Robert Mendick and Jacqui Goddard in Miami 1:45PM GMT 12 Mar 2011 A huge blast has caused further damage at one of two nuclear power plants which the Japanese government had placed under a state of emergency, compounding fears of a nuclear meltdown. A loud blast was heard at the plant in Fukushima following a series of aftershocks. White smoke was soon after seen billowing over the plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo. Several workers were reported to have been injured and exposed to radiation. As reports suggested the toll had risen to at least 1,700 deaths, an unconfirmed report on Japan's Fuji TV claimed that as many as 10,000 people were missing in the town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi prefecture. There were also reports that the hourly radiation levels at the damaged Japanese nuclear plant match the allowable annual dose, increasing the risk of developing cancer for anyone exposed to the leak. Japanese TV began warning people living near Fukushima nuclear power station to stay indoors. Residents were being told to turn off air-conditioners and not to drink tap water. People going outside were also been told to aviod exposing their skin and to cover their faces with masks and wet towels. Prime minister Naoto Kan had earlier warned that a radiation leak might occur at one of the reactors at the Daiichi facility at Fukushima, which is close to the stretch of coast that took the full force of the tsunami triggered by Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake. The reports of an explosion followed aftershocks and came as a huge humanitarian operation got under way. A team of British rescue workers was preparing to fly to Japan on Saturday afternoon. The team, mobilised after the Japanese government requested help from Britain’s Department for International Development, is expected to consist of four doctors plus 55 fire service personnel from Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, Hertfordshire, Cheshire, West Sussex, Wales, Kent, Lincolnshire and Lancashire. Two search and rescue dogs are also due to leave with the party, on a chartered jet from Manchester Airport. They will join teams from the US, Australia, New Zealand and South Korea, whose assistance was requested by the Japanese on the day the earthquake struck. By Saturday afternoon at least 1,700 people were feared dead and international rescue teams began to arrive. The official death toll stood at 413 on Saturday morning (London time), with 784 people missing and 1,128 injured. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicenter. The reactor’s cooling system failed after the earthquake struck off the Pacific coast, triggering a 33ft tsunami. Pressure in the reactor was continuing to rise after repeated efforts to return power to the cooling systems failed. Radiation inside the plant soared to 1,000 times its normal level, officials said, triggering evacuation orders for residents. Before the explosion workers had vented off steam in a bid to relieve pressure on the worst-hit reactor. A second atomic plant in the earthquake-hit area was also experiencing reactor cooling problems. Workers were battling to cool and stabilise the cores of three reactors at the nearby Daini facility. It was unclear to what extent the reactors’ external structures had been damaged, adding to uncertainty over the scale of any possible leak, and officials and scientists offered conflicting verdicts on the severity to public health. There was “no immediate health hazard”, public broadcaster NHK announced, citing nuclear officials. But the government ordered the evacuation of 45,000 people. “The events that occurred at these plants, which is the loss of both offsite power and onsite power, is one of the rarest events to happen in a nuclear power plant, and all indications are that the Japanese do not have the situation under control,” said Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a US-based organisation. “It’s a dice roll whether or not the containment will retain its integrity and prevent a large radiological release.” Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, predicted meltdown. “What we’re seeing, barring any information from the Japanese that they have it under control, is that we’re headed in that direction,” he said. The “superquake” 81 miles out to sea triggered a tsunami that sent a 30ft wall of water crashing into Japan’s Pacific coast on Friday. Fires caused by the tremor were burning in towns and cities along a 1,300-mile stretch of coastline. An oil refinery was one of dozens of buildings ablaze, as emergency workers struggled to cope with the scale of the disaster. The earthquake was 1,000 times more powerful than the tremor that devastated Christchurch in New Zealand last month, and the world’s seventh biggest since records began. Four million people were left without electricity amid the destruction in Tokyo alone. Japan has requested help from the UK in the aid effort and the Foreign Office warned against all but essential travel to Tokyo. Tourists were feared to be among those unaccounted for after a ship with 100 people on board was reported to have been lost at sea and two trains, one of them a bullet train carrying hundreds of passengers in the Miyagi region, were listed as missing. The Foreign Office said it had been contacted by 400 British families concerned that they had been unable to get in touch with relatives in Japan, but had no information on any British casualties. Initially, more than 3,000 people living within two miles of the plant were evacuated, with those within a seven-mile radius told to stay indoors. But with a third of the town underwater after a nearby dam burst and radiation levels continuing to rise, officials warned of a leak and tripled the safety cordon to six miles. Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said if the cooling systems were not repaired within 24 hours, the plant risked a “definite danger of a core meltdown". He said the “ultimate worst-case” was a “Chernobyl scenario” with explosions destroying the reactor and sending a “deadly plume” of radioactivity into the atmosphere. At first, the government insisted there was no risk of a leak from the plant and that everything was “under control”, despite the failure of the cooling system. But a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power, which owns the plant, admitted later that there was a problem. “Pressure has risen in the container of the reactor and we are trying to deal with it,” he said. His comments were followed by a statement from Japan’s nuclear safety agency saying radioactive vapour would be released to ease the pressure in the reactor, which had risen to one and a half times the norm. Then came an admission from Japan’s trade minister that “a small radiation leak” could occur at the plant. Millions of Japanese prepared to spend an uneasy night in fear of a further major tremor as more than 50 aftershocks were reported. The worst affected area appeared to be in and around the sprawling port of Sendai, where the tsunami swallowed everything in its path, churning up houses, cars, trees and boats before dumping them several miles inland. Seismologists picked up the first signs of the tremor in time for broadcasters to put out an emergency warning one minute before it shook northern Japan, giving millions of people time to take cover. Japan, which sits at the junction of three continental plates on the Pacific “ring of fire”, experiences up to 2,000 noticeable tremors every year. Newer buildings are designed to withstand even the biggest earthquakes. But nothing could prepare the country for the tsunami which followed minutes later. Television news helicopters captured footage of an unstoppable tide of sludge as it spread across the parched rice fields around Sendai like ink spilt on paper. Houses, cars, trees and anything else that stood in the way were churned up and became part of the advancing morass, adding to its destructive power as it moved hundreds of yards inland. Footage showed drivers jumping out of their cars on a bridge in the city and watching as the water of the harbour surged up the main bridge piles, dismasting several large fishing boats as they were driven forward by the tide and crushed beneath the concrete arches. Some of those stranded in the upstairs rooms in their homes waved white sheets out of windows, desperate to attract the attention of helicopters hovering overhead. The family of Hannah Craggs, a 27-year-old English teacher who works in Sendai, said they feared for her safety last night after failing to make any contact with her since the earthquake. Her father, Gary, 51, from Wolverhampton, said: “We haven’t given up hope, we just want to hear from Hannah. It’s just unbelievable – she is due to come home in two weeks. “She posted on her travel blog just a couple of days ago that she had survived her first quake out there – she said a 7.3 hit offshore a couple of days ago. “They say when one hits there is often another to follow and that’s been the case here.” In the port town of Ofunato, more than 300 houses were reported to have been destroyed, and a large section of Kesennuma, a town of 70,000 people in the Miyagi district, burned furiously into the night after fuel leaking from damaged cars caught fire and spread unchecked, with the emergency services unable to reach the area. “We were shaken so strongly for a while that we needed to hold on to something in order not to fall,” said a local government official in Kurihara in Miyagi. “We couldn’t escape the building immediately because the tremors continued.” In the coastal town of Aomori, at least five ocean-going ships were upended by the wave, coming to rest with the red hulls exposed as the waters drove inland, bursting sea defences and flooding harbourside streets. In Miyagi prefecture a schoolboy was swept away. Five people were reported to have been crushed to death by falling buildings in the Tokyo area. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Ken Hoshi, a local government official in Ishinomaki, a port city in Miyagi prefecture. “The water came as far as to the train station, hundreds of metres away from the coast.” The 41-year-old official said his city had turned into a flood zone. “I’m worried because I can’t contact my family. But because it’s my duty, I’m braced to spend the night here.” After years of being drilled in earthquake survival procedures, television pictures showed many residents reacting with remarkable composure and calm. Some office workers remained on the telephone as the buildings shook around them and sent files and books tumbling to the floor. Others were less assured. “I dashed out of my office. I sort of panicked and left behind my mobile phone and belongings,” said Aya Nakamura, an office worker in Tokyo.” “You see the crane on top of that tall building under construction? I thought it might fall off the building because all the buildings around me were shaking badly,” she added. Asagi Machida, a 27-year-old web designer, was walking near a coffee shop when the earthquake hit Tokyo. “The images from the New Zealand earthquake are still fresh in my mind so I was really scared,” she said, “I couldn’t believe such a big earthquake was happening here.” As the 500mph tidal wave spread out across the Pacific, tsunami warnings were issued as far away as Chile, but early fears of low-lying islands being swamped appeared to prove unfounded. Hundreds of people living in parts of California were told to evacuate their beachside homes as a precaution, with the tidal waves expected to take 24 hours to subside. In Crescent City, in northern California, five people were swept to sea by 6ft waves with one man still missing, feared dead. The Japanese government said the earthquake, which was felt 1,500 miles away in Beijing, had caused “tremendous damage” and left seven million homes without power. In Tokyo, several people were injured when the roof of a hall collapsed during a graduation ceremony. The Queen sent a message to Emperor Akihito, saying: “I was saddened to hear of the tragic loss of life caused by the earthquake which has struck north-east Japan today.” David Cameron said the earthquake was a “terrible reminder of the destructive power of nature” and sent his sympathies to the people of Japan, while William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said Britain was ready to send humanitarian aid and search and rescue teams. The last time a major earthquake hit Tokyo was in 1923, when the Great Kanto Earthquake claimed more than 140,000 lives, many of them in fires. In 1995 the Kobe earthquake killed more than 6,400 people. The Foreign Office set up a helpline — 020 70080000 — for the families of British nationals living in Japan who are unable to contact loved ones. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB.
