Japan declares emergency at another nuke plant; uses sea water in attempt to cool 2nd reactor
KORIYAMA, Japan (AP) - The U.N. nuclear agency says Japan has declared a state of emergency at another earthquake-affected nuclear plant where higher-than-permitted levels of radioactivity were measured.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says Japan informed it that the source of the radioactivity at the Onagawa power plant is being investigated. It said all three reactors at the plant are under control.
Japan also said authorities at another plant have resorted to using sea water to cool a second reactor in an attempt to prevent a meltdown.
Japan said earlier attempts to cool the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had failed. Sea water is also being used to cool the plant's No. 1 reactor.
Sea water is corrosive and is being used as a last resort.
— Japan's nuclear crisis intensified Sunday as authorities raced to combat the threat of multiple reactor meltdowns and more than 170,000 people evacuated the quake- and tsunami-savaged northeastern coast where fears spread over possible radioactive contamination.
Nuclear plant operators were frantically trying to keep temperatures down in a series of nuclear reactors — including one where officials feared a partial meltdown could be happening Sunday — to prevent the disaster from growing worse.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano also said Sunday that a hydrogen explosion could occur at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, the latest reactor to face a possible meltdown. That follows a blast the day before in the power plant's Unit 1, and operators attempted to prevent a meltdown there by injecting sea water into it.
"At the risk of raising further public concern, we cannot rule out the possibility of an explosion," Edano said. "If there is an explosion, however, there would be no significant impact on human health."
More than 170,000 people had been evacuated as a precaution, though Edano said the radioactivity released into the environment so far was so small it didn't pose any health threats.
"First I was worried about the quake," Kenji Koshiba, a construction worker who lives near the plant. "Now I'm worried about radiation." He spoke at an emergency center in Koriyama town near the power plant in Fukushima.
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Japan to ration electricity with rolling blackouts in parts of Tokyo, other cities
TOKYO (AP) - Tokyo Electric Power says it will ration electricity with rolling blackouts in parts of Tokyo and other Japanese other cities.
The planned blackouts of about three hours each will start Monday. They are meant to help make up for a severe shortfall after key nuclear plants were left inoperable due to the earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan.
Trade Minister Banri Kaieda said Sunday that the power utility expects a 25 percent shortfall in capacity. Officials appealed to Japanese for their understanding and support, saying it was the worst crisis the nation has faced since World War II.
TAGAJO, Japan (AP) — The death toll in Japan's earthquake and tsunami will likely exceed 10,000 in one state alone, an official said Sunday, as millions of survivors were left without drinking water, electricity and proper food along the pulverized northeastern coast.
"This is Japan's most severe crisis since the war ended 65 years ago," Prime Minister Naoto Kan told reporters, adding that Japan's future would be decided by the response to this crisis.
Although the government doubled the number of soldiers deployed in the aid effort to 100,000, it seemed overwhelmed by what's turning out to be a triple disaster: Friday's quake and tsunami damaged two nuclear reactors at a power plant on the coast, and at least one of them appeared to be going through a partial meltdown, raising fears of a radiation leak.
The police chief of Miyagi prefecture, or state, told a gathering of disaster relief officials that his estimate for deaths was more than 10,000, police spokesman Go Sugawara told The Associated Press. Miyagi has a population of 2.3 million and is one of the three prefectures hardest hit in Friday's disaster. Only 379 people have officially been confirmed dead in Miyagi.
The nuclear crisis posed fresh concerns for those who survived the earthquake and tsunami, which hit with breathtaking force and speed, breaking or sweeping away everything in its path.
"First I was worried about the quake, now I'm worried about radiation. I live near the plants, so I came here to find out if I'm OK. I tested negative, but I don't know what to do next," Kenji Koshiba, a construction worker, said at an emergency center in Koriyama town near the power plant in Fukushima.
According to officials, more than 1,400 people were killed — including 200 people whose bodies were found Sunday along the coast — and more than 1,000 were missing in the disasters. Another 1,700 were injured.
In a rare piece of good news, the Defense Ministry said a military vessel on Sunday rescued a 60-year-old man floating off the coast of Fukushima on the roof of his house after being swept away in the tsunami. He was in good condition.
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Japan quake, tsunami fuel worries about economy amid ballooning debt, halted production
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - A dead man lies on the stairs of a destroyed house in Sendai, northeastern Japan, Sunday, March 13, 2011, two days after the powerful earthquake and tsunami hit the area. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
TOKYO - Cars lie scattered at a port, a nearby oil plant spews clouds of smoke and shattered factories burn in northeastern Japan — signs of the dire hit the nation's economy is taking from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that has killed thousands.
The 8.9-magnitude tremblor that struck Friday triggered a wall of muddy waves that swallowed whole towns. Nuclear power stations were disabled and two reactors at one plant are threatening meltdown. An official says at least 10,000 people are dead in one coastal state alone.
The destruction may be reflected in the Tokyo stock market on Monday, with some analysts predicting it will nosedive when trading starts. The Bank of Japan said it's ready to take action to support the economy and ensure there's enough cash in the financial system to keep it operating normally.
Japan's economy, which lost its place as world's No. 2 to China last year, was already in a fragile state. It has been ailing for 20 years, barely managing to eke out weak growth in-between slowdowns, saddled by a massive public debt, at 200 per cent of gross domestic product — and growing.
Koetsu Aizawa, economics professor at Saitama University, says tens of billions of dollars will be needed to rebuild homes, roads and other infrastructure — requiring public spending that will add to the national debt.
"In the short term, the market will almost surely suffer and stocks will plunge. People might see an already weakened Japan, overshadowed by a growing China, getting dealt the finishing blow from this quake," he said.
Japan, however, has endured and recovered from other major disasters.
The 1995 earthquake in Kobe cost $132 billion and was the world's most expensive natural disaster, according to Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think-tank .
Still, Smith believes damage to Japan's economy from Friday's quake and tsunami will be massive.
"The long-term economic blow to a country already struggling to lower its budget deficit ... will be significant," she said.
The hard-hit northeast of Japan is a major centre for car production, complete with a myriad of parts suppliers and a network of roads and ports for efficient shipments.
The quake — the biggest in modern Japanese history — left all that in shambles.
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