Damage at Japan's Fukushima plant (Photo: DigitalGlobe)- YESTERDAY WAS THE HIGHEST RADIATION LEVELS YET.THEIR FINALLY ADMITTING THE RADIATION FROM THIS PLANT OF NUCLEAR REACTORS IS OUT OF CONTROL AND CAN KILL PEOPLE.SATURDAY AND SUNDAY THE WINDS WILL BE BLOWING ON TOKYO.ITS 1:50PM MAR 18,11
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367684/Nuclear-plant-chief-weeps-Japanese-finally-admit-radiation-leak-kill-people.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
DISEASES
REVELATION 6:7-8
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword,(WEAPONS) and with hunger,(FAMINE) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE).
PESTILENCES (CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS)
LUKE 21:11
11 And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences;(CHEMICAL,BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS) and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.
POISONED WATERS
REVELATION 8:8-11
8 And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood;
9 And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
10 And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
11 And the name of the star is called Wormwood:(bitter,Poisoned) and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.(poisoned)
REVELATION 16:3-7
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.(enviromentalists won't like this result)
4 And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.
5 And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.
6 For they(False World Church and Dictator) have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink; for they are worthy.
NUCLEAR LEVEL METER
7-MAJOR ACCIDENT
6-SERIOUS ACCIDENT - JAPAN AT THIS LEVEL CURRENTLY
5-ACCIDENT WITH WIDER CONSEQUENCES
4-ACCIDENT WITH LOCAL CONSEQUENCES
3-SERIOUS INCEDENT
2-INCIDENT
1-ANOMALY
RADIATION NETWORK
http://www.radiationnetwork.com/
LOW LEVEL RADIATION CAMPAIGN-Christopher Busby
http://llrc.org/
WEATHER MODEL-WINDSTREAM
http://www.stormsurfing.com/cgi/display_alt.cgi?a=npac_250
JONES ON THE MELTDOWN(RADIATION CONTAMINATION)OF JAPAN ALL THIS WEEK
http://rss.nfowars.net/20110316_Wed_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20110317_Thu_Alex.mp3
http://rss.nfowars.net/20110318_Fri_Alex.mp3
ITS 12:08AM MAR 18,11 AND REPORTS SAY THE RADIATION LEVEL WAS THE HIGHEST YET YESTERDAY SINCE THESE REACTOR DISASTERS STARTED 7 DAYS AGO.I JUST LOVE WHAT JIM WALSH SAID TO ANDERSON COOPER ON HIS(COOPERS)SHOW.JIM SAID TO ANDERSON IT ALWAYS SEEMS THERES BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THE NUKE REACTORS WHEN I'M ON YOUR SHOW LATE AT NIGHT WITH YOU.I KNOW WHY,ANDERSON COOPER IS THE HIGHEST CIA AGENT AT CNN,OVIOUSLY HE GETS THE BREAKING NEWS FED TO HIM TO REVEAL.AND THE 2ND HIGHEST PERSON IS WOLF BLITZER ALSO FOR BREAKING NEWS LIKE THAT.
The moment nuclear plant chief WEPT as Japanese finally admit that radiation leak is serious enough to kill people By Daily Mail Reporter 5:18 PM on 18th March 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367684/Nuclear-plant-chief-weeps-Japanese-finally-admit-radiation-leak-kill-people.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Government says it was overwhelmed by the scale of twin disasters Japanese upgrade accident from level four to five - the same as Three Mile Island We will rebuild from scratch says Japanese prime minister.Particles spewed from wrecked Fukushima power station arrive in California Military trucks tackle reactors with tons of water for second day .Overwhelmed: Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing Director Akio Komiri cries as he leaves after a press conference in Fukushima The boss of the company behind the devastated Japanese nuclear reactor today broke down in tears - as his country finally acknowledged the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens
Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency admitted that the disaster was a level 5, which is classified as a crisis causing several radiation deaths by the UN International Atomic Energy.Officials said the rating was raised after they realised the full extent of the radiation leaking from the plant. They also said that 3 per cent of the fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima plant had been severely damaged, suggesting those reactor cores have partially melted down.After Tokyo Electric Power Company Managing Director Akio Komiri cried as he left a conference to brief journalists on the situation at Fukushima, a senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis.He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: 'The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans.In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster.Nuclear experts have been saying for days that Japan was underplaying the crisis' severity.
It is now officially on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. Only the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 has topped the scale.Deputy director general of the NISA, Hideohiko Nishiyama, also admitted that they do not know if the reactors are coming under control.He said: With the water-spraying operations, we are fighting a fire we cannot see. That fire is not spreading, but we cannot say yet that it is under control.But prime minister Naoto Kan insisted that his country would overcome the catastrophe.We will rebuild Japan from scratch,' he said in a televised speech: In our history, this small island nation has made miraculous economic growth thanks to the efforts of all Japanese citizens. That is how Japan was built.It comes after pictures emerged showing overheating fuel rods exposed to the elements through a huge hole in the wall of a reactor building at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.
Radiation is streaming into the atmosphere from the used uranium rods at reactor number four, after a 45ft-deep storage pool designed to keep them stable boiled dry in a fire. And some of the radioactive material could reach Britain within a fortnight, according to experts.However they say it will not be dangerous when it reaches our shores while low levels of radiation have already hit Southern California. A UN official said the radiation reaching America is 'about a billion times' beneath health-threatening levels.
An airborne plume of radiation is expected to be swept towards Europe, and again officials stress that the levels reaching the UK will not be high enough to pose any risk to human health.Lars-Erik De Geer of the Swedish Defence Research Institute, said particles would eventually be detected across Europe.It is not something you see normally,he said. But it is not high from any danger point of view. It is only a question of very, very low activities so it is nothing for people to worry about.
The prediction that particles could reach Britain within two weeks is based on previous data, gathered by scientists observing nuclear testing in China.Meanwhile, workers at the devastated power station are continuing their desperate battle to prevent a complete meltdown which some fear could be as bad as Chernobyl.The latest pictures show a whole wall missing from the building housing reactor number four. Inside, a green crane normally used to move spent fuel rods into the storage pool can be seen. Underneath the crane, but not seen in the picture, is the 45ft-deep spent fuel storage pool which has boiled dry.Officials at Fukushima are rapidly running out of options to halt the crisis. Military trucks are spraying the reactors for a second days with tons of water arcing over the facility. Engineers are trying to get the coolant pumping systems knocked out by the tsunami working again after laying a new power line from the main grid.And they today admitted that burying reactors under sand and concrete - the solution adopted in Chernobyl - may be the only option to stop a catastrophic radiation release.It was the first time the facility operator had acknowledged burying the sprawling 40-year-old complex was possible, a sign that piecemeal actions such as dumping water from military helicopters or scrambling to restart cooling pumps may not work.It is not impossible to encase the reactors in concrete. But our priority right now is to try and cool them down first,an official from the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co, told a news conference.But some experts warned that even the concrete solution was not without risks.It's just not that easy,Murray Jennex, a professor at San Diego State University in California, said when asked about the so-called Chernobyl option for dealing with damaged reactors, named after the Ukrainian nuclear plant that exploded in 1986.
They (reactors) are kind of like a coffee maker. If you leave it on the heat, they boil dry and then they crack, he said.Putting concrete on that wouldn't help keep your coffee maker safe. But eventually, yes, you could build a concrete shield and be done with it.And Yukiya Amano, the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency said workers were in a race against the clock to cool the reactor.Attempts to quell the overheating plant with waterbombs from helicopters yesterday failed and despite the army pelting the site with water cannon, radiation levels rose higher.
Engineers are also working to restore power to the coolant pumping system knocked out by the tsunami.There was a potential breakthrough when engineers succeeded in connecting a power line to Reactor 2. This should enable them to restore electricity to the cooling pumps needed to prevent meltdown.But it is not certain the system will work after suffering extensive damage.As the crisis entered its eighth day, the Japanese government was facing growing international condemnation for its handling of the world's second worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and for the lack of information it is giving experts and the public.
Officials have declared a 12-mile evacuation zone around the plant on the north eastern coast. Another 140,000 people living within 18 miles have been told not to leave their homes.But Britain, which is pressing Japan to be more open about the disaster, has advised citizens to give the area a 30-mile berth and to quit Tokyo nearly 150 miles to the south.Yesterday thousands headed to Tokyo's airport to leave the country for whichever destination they could find.Two Foreign Office-ordered chartered flights, with almost 600 seats, begin their work today to bring Britons home.America, France and Australia are also advising nationals to move away from the plant.A week after the earthquake and tsunami, authorities are still struggling to bring it back from the brink of disaster.Four of six nuclear reactors at the site have been hit by explosions and fires which have sent clouds of low-level radiation into the air.The team of exhausted workers battling to prevent meltdown at the site – dubbed the Fukushima Fifty – are unable to approach the most badly damaged reactors because radiation levels are so high.Yesterday concern focused on two large tanks used to store spent nuclear fuel at Reactors 3 and 4.Hydrogen explosions blew the roofs off both buildings earlier this week, leaving the pools exposed to the elements.Water levels in the tanks have dropped dramatically in the last few days, possibly because of a leak caused by the earthquake. Waste in Reactor 3 is completely exposed to the air and is emitting alarming levels of radiation as it heats up.Unlike the other reactors which use uranium, Reactor 3 uses a mixture of uranium and plutonium. Plutonium, best known as an ingredient in nuclear weapons, is particularly dangerous if released into the environment.In the worst case scenario, exposed fuel will melt, triggering a chemical explosion that will send radioactive dust hundreds of yards into the air.Chinook helicopters flying at less than 300 feet dropped four loads of water over the wrecked building in the hope that some water would seep into the dried-out pool and cool the fuel.
However, footage suggested much of the 2,000 gallons of water missed its target.
Later, six fire engines and a water cannon tried to spray the building with 9,000 gallons of water from high pressure hoses. However, radiation levels within the plant rose from 3,700 millisieverts to 4,000 millisieverts an hour immediately afterwards.People exposed to such doses will suffer radiation sickness and many will die. Today Tokyo Electric Power, which owns the plant, will try to restart the reactor's cooling systems after workers connected a half mile long power cable from the national grid to Reactor 2.Spokesman Teruaki Kobayashi said: This is the first step towards recovery.He added: We are doing all we can as we pray for the situation to improve.Last night 14,000 were confirmed dead or missing in Japan and 492,000 are homeless. There are 850,000 households in the north of the main island without electricity in freezing temperatures.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367684/Nuclear-plant-chief-weeps-Japanese-finally-admit-radiation-leak-kill-people.html#ixzz1GyXxXCgP
Plutonium in troubled reactors, spent fuel pools
The Associated Press – Fri Mar 18, 6:13 am ET
The fuel rods at all six reactors at the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi complex contain plutonium — better known as fuel for nuclear weapons. While plutonium is more toxic than uranium, other radioactive elements leaking out are likely to be of greater danger to the general public.Only six percent of the fuel rods at the plant's Unit 3 were a mixture of plutonium-239 and uranium-235 when first put into operation. The fuel in other reactors is only uranium, but even there, plutonium is created during the fission process.This means the fuel in all of the stricken reactors and spent fuel pools contain plutonium.Plutonium is indeed nasty stuff, especially damaging to lungs and kidneys. It is also less stable than uranium and can more easily spark a dangerous nuclear chain reaction.But plutonium, like uranium, is a heavy element that is not easily dispersed in the air. It is the other byproducts of nuclear power generation, such as radioactive forms of cesium and iodine, that are more prone to spread and cause widespread contamination.Ed Lyman, a physicist at the activist group Union of Concerned Scientists, estimates the fuel in Unit 3 is 5 percent to 10 percent more dangerous than the fuel in the other crippled reactors.Still, it is very unlikely to become packed tightly enough to reach what is known as critical mass and start a chain reaction. The plutonium would qualify as weapons grade only if a large quantity was packed together.Here's how the uranium in a typical reactor turns into a mixture that includes plutonium:When the pellets of uranium dioxide inside the thin fuel rods are split to create energy in the reactor, they release neutrons that, in turn, create highly radioactive plutonium-239. This is the same type of plutonium used to make nuclear weapons.
This plutonium also splits, creating even more energy. By the end of a uranium fuel cycle, 40 percent of the energy produced comes from the splitting of plutonium.The spent fuel rod that remains at the end of the process contains uranium, plutonium, and a cocktail of other poisonous and radioactive byproducts.The Fukushima Dai-ichi site has a considerable number of fuel rods on hand, according to information provided Thursday by Toyko Electric Power Co., which owns the atomic complex: There are 3,400 tons of fuel in seven spent fuel pools within the six-reactor plant, including one joint pool storing very old fuel from units 3 and 4. There are 877 tons in five of the reactor cores. Officials have said that the fuel in Unit 4's reactor vessel was transferred to its spent fuel pool when the unit was temporarily shut in November.If plutonium did get out, it wouldn't disappear quickly. Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 25,000 years, meaning it takes that long to lose half of its radioactive potency. Uranium-235 has a half-life of 700 million years. And cesium, which tends to go airborne much more easily, has a half-life of 30 years.Japan has recently built a facility to remove the byproducts and reprocess the plutonium and uranium into a substance called MOX for reuse in its reactors.This was done in part to reduce the amount of spent fuel that is kept onsite at nuclear plants.Japan's reprocessing plant, in Rokkasho, a village 300 miles (500 kilometers) north of Fukushima, is only starting up, and hasn't yet begun full operation. Japan started to use MOX in some of its reactors to learn how it affects plant operations. In general, MOX fuel runs hotter than uranium oxide while inside the reactor.The United States does not reprocess fuel and encourages other countries not to do so because of fears that plutonium recovered in the process could be used to make nuclear weapons.
What They Are Doing Is Basically Using Squirt Guns Against a Raging Forest Fire Washington’s Blog March 18, 2011
http://www.infowars.com/what-they-are-doing-is-basically-using-squirt-guns-against-a-raging-forest-fire/
World-renowned physicist Michio Kaku (known for being a leading string theorist) told MSNBC that dropping water from helicopters is pointless, and advocates using the Chernobyl approach instead:[Kaku] What they are doing is basically using squirt guns against a raging forest fire.It’s not effective, because the workers cannot get close enough to put water here. That’s why I would personally advocate the Chernobyl option. Do what Gorbachev did, call out the Japanese air force, get the army to bring a fleet of helicopters armed with sand, boric acid and concrete, entomb it, bury it in concrete.[Question] So the sand and — the approach they use in Chernobyl . Is it too early to do that? [Kaku] They keep saying that the thing is stable. That’s like saying you’re hanging on your fingernails and saying it’s stable, stable, every six hours it gets worse. If I was the prime minister, I would put the air force on standby, get the helicopters in case they have to exercise the Chernobyl option.
Japan official: Disasters overwhelmed government By ERIC TALMADGE and MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press - MAR 18,11 11:00AM
TOKYO – The Japanese government acknowledged Friday that it was overwhelmed by the scale of last week's twin natural disasters, slowing the response to the nuclear crisis that was triggered by the earthquake and tsunami that left at least 10,000 people dead.The admission came as Japan welcomed U.S. help in stabilizing its overheated, radiation-leaking nuclear complex, and reclassified the rating of the nuclear accident from Level 4 to Level 5 on a seven-level international scale, putting it on a par with the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.Nuclear experts have been saying for days that Japan was underplaying the severity of the nuclear crisis, which later Friday the prime minister called very grave.The International Nuclear Event Scale defines a Level 4 incident as having local consequences and a Level 5 as having wider consequences.Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's nuclear safety agency said the rating was raised when officials realized that at least 3 percent of the fuel in three of the reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had been severely damaged, suggesting those reactor cores have partially melted down and thrown radioactivity into the environment.The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, admitting that information had not been shared quickly enough.
In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster, he said.Later, Prime Minister Naoto Kan urged the nation to unite.We will rebuild Japan from scratch. We must all share this resolve, he said in a nationally televised address, calling the crises a great test for the Japanese people.At the stricken complex, military fire trucks sprayed the reactor units for a second day, with tons of water arcing over the facility in desperate attempts to prevent the fuel from overheating and spewing dangerous levels of radiation.The whole world, not just Japan, is depending on them, Tokyo office worker Norie Igarashi, 44, said of the emergency teams working amid heightened radiation levels at the complex.Last week's 9.0 quake and tsunami set off the nuclear problems by knocking out power to cooling systems at the Fukushima plant on the northeast coast. Since then, four of its six reactor units have seen fires, explosions or partial meltdowns.The unfolding crises have led to power shortages in Japan, forced factories to close, sent shockwaves through global manufacturing and triggered a plunge in Japanese stock prices.We see it as an extremely serious accident, Yukiya Amano, the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters Friday in Tokyo. This is not something that just Japan should deal with, and people of the entire world should cooperate with Japan and the people in the disaster areas.I think they are racing against the clock, he said of the efforts to cool the complex.One week after the twin disasters — which has officially left more than 6,900 dead and more than 10,700 missing — emergency crews are facing two challenges in the nuclear crisis: cooling the reactors where energy is generated, and cooling the adjacent pools where used nuclear fuel rods are stored in water.
Both need water to stop their uranium from heating up and emitting radiation, but with radiation levels inside the complex already limiting where workers can go and how long they can remain, it's been difficult to get enough water inside. Water in at least one fuel pool — in the complex's Unit 3 — is believed to be dangerously low. Without enough water, the rods may heat further and spew out radiation. Dealing with Unit 3 is our utmost priority,Edano told reporters.Edano said Tokyo is asking the U.S. government for help and that the two are discussing the specifics. "We are coordinating with the U.S. government as to what the U.S. can provide and what people really need,Edano said.While Tokyo quickly welcomed international help for the natural disasters, the government initially balked at assistance with the nuclear crisis. That reluctance softened as the problems at Fukushima multiplied. Washington says its technical experts are now exchanging information with officials from Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns the plant, and with government agencies.
A U.S. military fire truck was also used to help spray water into Unit 3, according to air force Chief of Staff Shigeru Iwasaki, though the vehicle was apparently driven by Japanese workers.The U.S. vehicle was used alongside six Japanese military fire trucks normally used to extinguish fires at plane crashes.The fire trucks allowed emergency workers to stay a relatively safe distance from the radiation, firing the water with high-pressure cannons. The firefighters also are able to direct the cannons from inside the vehicle.Officials shared few details about Friday's operation, which lasted nearly 40 minutes, though Iwasaki said he believed some water had reached its target.The U.S. has also now conducted overflights of the reactor site, strapping sophisticated pods onto aircraft to measure airborne radiation, U.S. officials said. Two tests conducted Thursday gave readings that U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel B. Poneman said reinforced the U.S. recommendation that people keep away from a 50-mile (80-kilometer) radius around the Fukushima plant.Tsunami survivors observed a minute of silence Friday afternoon to mark one week since the quake, which struck at 2:46 p.m. on March 11. Many were bundled up against the cold in the disaster zone, pressing their hands together in prayer.Low levels of radiation have been detected well beyond Tokyo, which is 140 miles (220 kilometers) south of the plant, but hazardous levels have been limited to the plant itself. Still, the crisis has forced thousands to evacuate and drained Tokyo's normally vibrant streets of life, its residents either leaving town or hunkering down in their homes.The Japanese government has been slow in releasing information on the crisis, even as the troubles have multiplied. In a country where the nuclear industry has a long history of hiding its safety problems, this has left many people, in Japan and among governments overseas, confused and anxious.
After meeting with Kan and other senior officials, the U.N.'s Amano complained that his agency had not been receiving critical information. He said, for instance, the IAEA wanted to know what kind of radioactive elements were being released but could not get the data.This kind of information is needed in a timely way, and we hope the Japanese government will provide it. We hope everything will be better, Amano told reporters.At times, Japan and the U.S. — two very close allies — have offered starkly differing assessments over the dangers at Fukushima. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jazcko said Thursday that it could take days and possibly weeks to get the complex under control. He defended the U.S. decision to recommend a 50-mile (80-kilometer) evacuation zone for its citizens, wider than the 12-mile (20-kilometer) band Japan has ordered.Crucial to the effort to regain control over the Fukushima plant is laying a new power line to the plant, allowing operators to restore cooling systems. The operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., missed a deadline late Thursday but hoped to completed the effort late Friday, said nuclear safety agency spokesman Minoru Ohgoda.But even once the power is reconnected, it was not clear if the cooling systems were intact and will still work.Workers were completing laying cables around Units 1 and 2 on Friday, a power company official said, and hoped to reach more units Saturday. Even so, experts will have to check for anything volatile to avoid an explosion when the electricity is turned on. There may be sparks, so I can't deny the risk,said Teruaki Kobayashi.President Barack Obama assured Americans that officials do not expect harmful amounts of radiation to reach the U.S. or its territories. He also said the U.S. was offering Japan any help it could provide.Police said more than 452,000 people made homeless by the quake and tsunami were staying in schools and other shelters, as supplies of fuel, medicine and other necessities ran short. Both victims and aid workers appealed for more help, as the chances of finding more survivors dwindled.About 343,000 Japanese households still do not have electricity, and about 1 million have no water.At the Fukushima plant, a core team of 180 emergency workers has been rotating out of the complex to minimize radiation exposure.The storage pools need a constant source of cooling water. 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.The actions authorities are taking to cool the reactors are the best ones available, experts say. Eventually, the plant may be entombed in concrete, as was done hastily after the 1986 Chernobyl reactor accident.
But pressures and temperatures must be controlled before then, said Mario V. Bonaca, an adviser to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Otherwise, he said, overheated nuclear fuel will melt or burst through the sand, cement or other covering and release more radiation.Talmadge reported from Yamagata. Associated Press writers Elaine Kurtenbach, Tim Sullivan, Shino Yuasa and Jeff Donn in Tokyo, Todd Pitman in Shizugaza and Kelly Olsen in Narita, Japan contributed to this report.
More smoke rises from Japan's crippled nuke-plant By ERIC TALMADGE and MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press - 112:02AM MAR 18,11
YAMAGATA, Japan – Smoke billowed from a building at Japan's crippled nuclear power plant Friday as emergency crews worked to reconnect electricity to cooling systems on the overheating nuclear fuel at the tsunami-ravaged facility.Four of the troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant's six reactor units have seen fires, explosions or partial meltdowns in the week since the tsunami. While the reactor cores where energy is generated are a concern, water in the pools used to store used nuclear fuel are also major worries. Water in at least one fuel pool — in the complex's Unit 3 — is believed to be dangerously low, exposing the stored fuel rods. Without enough water, the rods may heat further and spew out radiation.Dealing with Unit 3 is our utmost priority, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.Frantic efforts were made Thursday to douse a number of units with water, and authorities were preparing to repeat many of those efforts Friday. However, they said they would not continue helicopter drops of water. Televised footage of the air drops Thursday appeared to show much of that water blowing away.Friday's smoke came from the complex's Unit 2, and its cause was not known, the nuclear safety agency said. An explosion had hit the building on Tuesday, possibly damaging a crucial cooling chamber that sits below the reactor core.
In the week since the massive earthquake and tsunami that set off the nuclear crisis by knocking out power to cooling systems for the reactors, Japan's government and the utility that runs Fukushima have struggled to contain the plant's cascading troubles.We see it as an extremely serious accident, Yukiya Amano, the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters Friday just after arriving in Tokyo. The international community is extremely concerned.This is not something that just Japan should deal with, and people of the entire world should cooperate with Japan and the people in the disaster areas, he said.If there is good news, it's that the bad situation has not grown significantly more troubled in recent days.A senior official with the U.N. nuclear agency said Thursday there had been no significant worsening at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant but that the situation remained very serious. Graham Andrew told reporters in Vienna that nuclear fuel rods in two reactors were only about half covered with water, and they were also not completely submerged in a third.Edano said Friday that Tokyo is asking the U.S. government for help and the two are discussing the specifics.We are coordinating with the U.S. government as to what the U.S. can provide and what people really need, Edano said.At times, the two close allies have offered starkly differing assessments over the dangers at Fukushima.U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jazcko said Thursday that it could take days and possibly weeks to get the complex under control. He defended the U.S. decision to recommend a 50-mile (80-kilometer) evacuation zone for its citizens, wider than the 30-mile (50-kilometer) band Japan has ordered.
EU commissioner: Japanese disaster in hands of God
ANDREW WILLIS 17.03.2011 @ 09:29 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The nuclear crisis in Japan is now in the hands of God, the EU's energy commissioner, Guenther Oettinger, has said, rattling financial markets.
Speaking to the European Parliament's environment committee on Wednesday (16 March), Oettinger expressed surprise at the incredible makeshift methods being used by Japanese technicians to prevent further disaster at the Fukushima power plant. The site is effectively out of control, the German commissioner told MEPs, a day after he described Japan as facing an apocalypse.Global stock markets reacted with alarm to the energy chief's comments, with a spokeswoman quickly clarifying that they were not based on any new information.The European Commission also confirmed Wednesday that it had asked EU member states to check the levels of radioactivity in food and feed imports from Japan, although annual imports from the Asian country amount to a relatively low €65 million, mainly fruit, vegetables and fish. Maximum levels of radioactive contamination allowed in food imports into the EU were fixed following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
Japan's ongoing crisis has rapidly turned Europe's attention to the safety of its own nuclear power sector, with member states and industry representatives agreeing on Tuesday to subject the bloc's 143 plants to stress tests later this year. On Monday, Berlin announced it would temporarily shut down seven of Germany's nuclear plants built prior to 1980, pending the outcome of an independent safety review. The move followed large anti-nuclear protests in the country over the weekend, with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat party facing a strong challenge from the anti-nuclear Greens in upcoming regional elections.Other member states have warned against knee-jerk reactions. We don't see any reason to yield to hysteria, the prime minister of the pro-nuclear Czech Republic, Petr Necas, said on Tuesday, referring to the German decision. We consider it a cheap trick.British energy secretary Chris Huhne said some continental politicians had acted hastily. French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said it would be absurd to condemn nuclear energy out of hand.Europe has witnessed a number of little-known potential disasters since Chernobyl however, including at the Kozloduy plant in Bulgaria in March 2005. Operators realised that the shutdown facility of the plant was not operating correctly, Georgui Kastchiev, a senior scientist at the Vienna-based Institute of Risk Research, told EUobserver on Wednesday.During dangerous events such as an electricity blackout, the first thing is to shutdown the fission reaction taking place in the core. But the plant's neutron absorbers which stop the reaction were jammed. A nightmare situation would have developed if the power had suddenly cut.
A 2007 report co-authored by Kastchiev highlights a list of similar shortcomings or minor accidents which could have become more serious.These include the Tihange plant in Belgium in 1988, the Civaux plant in France in 1998, the Philippsburg plant in Germany in 2001 and the Forsmark plant in Sweden in 2006.Commission approval for Bulgarian authorities to build a nuclear plant in Belene has also come in for criticism.The commission approved Bulgaria's application in 2007 ... citing no seismic risks. But in 1977 roughly 120 people were killed in an earthquake only 14 km away,Greenpeace nuclear campaigner Jan Haverkamp told this website earlier this week.On Tuesday, Oettinger said the commission planned to re-examine the project.
