U.S. shows growing alarm over Japan nuclear crisis

(source: Yahoo news & Reuters.com)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States showed increasing alarm about Japan's nuclear crisis on Wednesday and urged its citizens to stay clear of an earthquake-crippled power plant, going further in its warnings than Japan itself.
The State Department said the United States has chartered aircraft to help Americans leave Japan and had authorized the voluntary departure of family members of diplomatic staff in Tokyo, Nagoya and Yokohama -- about 600 people.
"The State Department strongly urges U.S. citizens to defer travel to Japan at this time and those in Japan should consider departing," it said.
As operators of the Fukushima plant tried to douse overheating reactors, U.S. officials warned about the risks of getting anywhere near the area and relied on their own officials for details about the danger.
"The situation has deteriorated in the days since the tsunami and ... the situation has grown at times worse with potential greater damage and fallout from the reactor," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.
U.S. officials took pains not to criticize the Japanese government, which has shown signs of being overwhelmed by the crisis that began after last Friday's devastating 9.0 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami.
But Washington's actions indicated a divide with the Japanese about the perilousness of the situation.
U.S. President Barack Obama told Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan in a telephone call that the United States will do all it can to help Japan recover, the White House said.
"The president briefed Prime Minister Kan on the additional support being provided by the U.S., including specialized military assets with expertise in nuclear response and consequence management," it said in a statement.
The State Department recommended that U.S. citizens within 50 miles of the plant leave the area or stay indoors.
Japan's government has asked people living within 12 miles to evacuate and those between 12 miles and 18 miles to stay indoors.
PLUME OF RADIATION
Gregory Jaczko, the top U.S. nuclear regulator, cast doubt on efforts to cool overheating reactors, saying workers may be hit with "lethal doses" of radiation.
"It would be very difficult for emergency workers to get near the reactors," Jaczko said.
A United Nations forecast projects the radioactive plume from the Fukushima facility would reach the Aleutian Islands on Thursday and hit Southern California late on Friday, The New York Times reported.
The projection, calculated on Tuesday and obtained by the newspaper, gives no information about actual radiation levels, it said. Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and will have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, it reported.
The U.S. military has ordered its forces to stay 50 miles away from the plant, the Pentagon said. There are at least 55,000 members of the U.S. forces in Japan and offshore assisting the relief operation.
"All of us are heartbroken by the images of what's happening in Japan and we're reminded of how American leadership is critical to our closest allies," Obama said in Washington.
"Even if those allies are themselves economically advanced and powerful, there are moments where they need our help, and we're bound together by a common humanity."
CONFLICTING REPORTS
The State Department's warning to U.S. citizens was based on new information collected by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy and other U.S. sources.
The United States is trying to deploy equipment in Japan that can detect radiation exposure at ground level, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a congressional hearing.
The detection system is part of equipment and 39 personnel from the Energy Department sent to Japan, he said. It has also provided equipment to monitor airborne radiation.
The United States is deploying more radiation monitors on Hawaii and other U.S. islands even though it does not expect harmful levels of radiation to reach U.S. soil, environmental regulators said.
Chu declined to tell lawmakers, when asked, whether he was satisfied with Japan's response so far to its nuclear crisis.
"I can't really say. I think we hear conflicting reports," Chu said. "This is one of the reasons why (the United States is) there with boots on the ground ... to know what is really happening."
Beyond the risk to workers at or near the damaged nuclear plant, one scientist, Dr. Ira Helfand, warned of possible widespread contamination of people and land.
"We need ... to focus on the radioactive isotopes being dispersed at some distance from the plant, because this is going to cause a whole different set of health problems," Helfand, past president of the anti-nuclear group Physicians for Social Responsibility, said in a telephone briefing.
The Obama administration has maintained its support for expanding U.S. use of nuclear energy despite renewed fears about its safety after the events in Japan.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday the crisis raised questions about the use of nuclear energy in the United States.
"What's happening in Japan raises questions about the costs and the risks associated with nuclear power but we have to answer those," she said in an interview with MSNBC in which she emphasized the need for a comprehensive U.S. energy policy.
"We get 20 percent of our energy right now in the United States from nuclear power."
(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe, David Morgan, Andrew Quinn, Paul Eckert, Matt Spetalnick, Alister Bull, Patricia Zengerle, Steve Holland, Deborah Zabarenko and Phil Stewart; Editing by Peter Cooney and John O'Callaghan)

Star Smile mad

10K dead in Japan amid fears of nuclear meltdowns

(source: Yahoo news)

SENDAI, Japan – The estimated death toll from Japan's disasters climbed past 10,000 Sunday as authorities raced to combat the threat of multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns and hundreds of thousands of people struggled to find food and water. The prime minister said it was the nation's worst crisis since World War II.

Nuclear plant operators worked frantically to try to keep temperatures down in several reactors crippled by the earthquake and tsunami, wrecking at least two by dumping sea water into them in last-ditch efforts to avoid meltdowns. Officials warned of a second explosion but said it would not pose a health threat.

Near-freezing temperatures compounded the misery of survivors along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the northeastern coast battered by the tsunami that smashed inland with breathtaking fury. Rescuers pulled bodies from mud-covered jumbles of wrecked houses, shattered tree trunks, twisted cars and tangled power lines while survivors examined the ruined remains.

One rare bit of good news was the rescue of a 60-year-old man swept away by the tsunami who clung to the roof of his house for two days until a military vessel spotted him waving a red cloth about 10 miles (15 kilometers) offshore.

The death toll surged because of a report from Miyagi, one of the three hardest hit states. The police chief told disaster relief officials more than 10,000 people were killed, police spokesman Go Sugawara told The Associated Press. That was an estimate — only 400 people have been confirmed dead in Miyagi, which has a population of 2.3 million.

According to officials, more than 1,400 people were confirmed dead — including 200 people whose bodies were found Sunday along the coast — and more than 1,000 were missing in Friday's disasters. Another 1,700 were injured.

For Japan, one of the world's leading economies with ultramodern infrastructure, the disasters plunged ordinary life into nearly unimaginable deprivation.

Hundreds of thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centers that were cut off from rescuers, aid and electricity. At least 1.4 million households had gone without water since the quake struck and some 1.9 million households were without electricity.

While the government doubled the number of soldiers deployed in the aid effort to 100,000 and sent 120,000 blankets, 120,000 bottles of water and 29,000 gallons (110,000 liters) of gasoline plus food to the affected areas, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said electricity would take days to restore. In the meantime, he said, electricity would be rationed with rolling blackouts to several cities, including Tokyo.

"This is Japan's most severe crisis since the war ended 65 years ago," Kan told reporters, adding that Japan's future would be decided by its response.


Star Smile mad

Explosion at Japan nuke plant, disaster toll rises

(source: Yahoo.com)

IWAKI, Japan – An explosion at a nuclear power station Saturday destroyed a building housing the reactor, but a radiation leak was decreasing despite fears of a meltdown from damage caused by a powerful earthquake and tsunami, officials said.

Government spokesman Yukio Edano said the explosion destroyed the exterior walls of the building where the reactor is placed, but not the actual metal housing enveloping the reactor.

That was welcome news for a country suffering from Friday's double disaster that pulverized the northeastern coast, leaving at least 574 people dead by official count.

The scale of destruction was not yet known, but there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said four whole trains had disappeared Friday and still not been located. Local media reports said at least 1,300 people may have been killed.

Edano said the radiation around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had not risen after the blast, but had in fact decreased. He did not say why radiation was that was so.

Officials have not given specific radiation readings for the area, though they said they were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year.

Virtually any increase in ambient radiation can raise long-term cancer rates.

The pressure in the reactor was also decreasing after the blast, he said.

The explosion was preceded by puff of white smoke that gathered intensity until it became a huge cloud enveloping the entire facility, located in Fukushima, 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Iwaki. After the explosion, the walls of the building crumbled, leaving only a skeletal metal frame.

Tokyo Power Electric Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital.

Star Smile mad