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Re: Japan: death toll could exceed 18,000, Nuclear problems continue
Workers pulled at Japan nuke plant as smoke rises
By ERIC TALMADGE and MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press
FUKUSHIMA, Japan – Operators evacuated workers from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant Monday after gray smoke rose from one of its reactor units, the latest of persistent troubles in stabilizing the radiation-leaking complex.
The evacuation brought to a standstill some of the work on restoring the plant's electrical lines and restarting the water pumping systems needed to keep nuclear fuel from overheating and releasing even greater amounts of radiation.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Hiroshi Aizawa said the evacuation was prompted by smoke rising from the area of the spent fuel storage pool at the plant's Unit 3 reactor building. However, nuclear safety agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama later told reporters in Tokyo he didn't think the smoke was linked to the fuel pool.
"We are checking the cause of the smoke," nuclear safety agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama said in Tokyo.
There had been no explosion, and no immediate spike in radiation at the plant, Nishiyama said.
Japanese officials had reported some progress over the weekend in their battle to bring the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant under control after it was damaged during the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeast Japan and likely left more than 18,400 people dead. But there also were hitches, including an unexpected surge in pressure in the reactor core at the troubled Unit 3.
And the nuclear crisis was far from over, with the discovery of more radiation-tainted vegetables and tap water adding to public fears about contaminated food and drink.
The toll of Japan's triple disaster came into clearer focus Monday after police estimates showed more than 18,000 people died in the quake and tsunami, and the World Bank said rebuilding may cost $235 billion.
The safety of food and water was of particular concern. The government halted shipments of spinach from one area and raw milk from another near the nuclear plant after tests found iodine exceeded safety limits. But the contamination spread to spinach in three other prefectures and to more vegetables — canola and chrysanthemum greens. Tokyo's tap water, where iodine turned up Friday, now has cesium. Rain and dust are also tainted.
Early Monday, the Health Ministry advised Iitate, a village of 6,000 people about 30 kilometers (19 miles) northwest of the Fukushima plant, not to drink tap water due to elevated levels of iodine. Ministry spokesman Takayuki Matsuda said iodine three times the normal level was detected there — about one twenty-sixth of the level of a chest X-ray in one liter of water.
In all cases, the government said the radiation levels were too small to pose an immediate health risk.
But Tsugumi Hasegawa was skeptical as she cared for her 4-year-old daughter at a shelter in a gymnasium crammed with 1,400 people about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the plant.
"I still have no idea what the numbers they are giving about radiation levels mean. It's all so confusing," said Hasegawa, 29, from the small town of Futuba in the shadow of the nuclear complex. "And I wonder if they aren't playing down the dangers to keep us from panicking. I don't know who to trust."
The World Bank said in report Monday that Japan may need five years to rebuild from the catastrophic disasters, which caused up to $235 billion in damage, saying the cost to private insurers will be up to $33 billion and that the government will spend $12 billion on reconstruction in the current national budget and much more later.
All six of the nuclear complex's reactor units saw trouble after the disasters knocked out cooling systems. In a small advance, the plant's operator declared Units 5 and 6 — the least troublesome — under control after their nuclear fuel storage pools cooled to safe levels. Progress was made to reconnect two other units to the electric grid and in pumping seawater to cool another reactor and replenish it and a sixth reactor's storage pools.
But the buildup in pressure inside the vessel holding Unit 3's reactor presented some danger, forcing officials to consider a deliberate release of radioactive steam to release the buildup. The tactic produced explosions of radioactive gas during the early days of the crisis.
"Even if certain things go smoothly, there would be twists and turns," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters. "At the moment, we are not so optimistic that there will be a breakthrough."
Growing concerns about radiation add to the overwhelming chain of disasters Japan has struggled with since the 9.0-magnitude quake. The resulting tsunami ravaged the northeastern coast. All told, police estimates show more than about 18,400 died. More than 15,000 deaths are likely in Miyagi, the prefecture that took the full impact of the wave, said a police spokesman.
"It is very distressing as we recover more bodies day by days," said Hitoshi Sugawara, the spokesman.
Police in other parts of the disaster area declined to provide estimates, but confirmed about 3,400 deaths. Nationwide, official figures show the disasters killing more than 8,600 people, and leaving more than 13,200 people missing, but those two lists may have some overlap.
The disasters have displaced another 452,000, who are living in shelters.
Re: Japan: death toll could exceed 18,000, Nuclear problems continue
the blogs say thats a last ditch effort and beyond repair. the fear is that filling them in with concrete will make that area off limits for decades. does anyone have any footage or official news link i cant find one on it yet.
If cooling fails, Japan may bury reactor
Leo Lewis From: The Australian March 21, 2011 12:00AM
JAPAN appears to be considering a "Chernobyl solution" to end its nuclear crisis as emergency crews, technicians and a growing army of international experts struggle to bring Fukushima's reactors and spent fuel rods under control.
But while the Tokyo Electric Power Co said the option was "not an impossibility", cooling the reactors was the priority.
As seawater was hosed through blast holes in the reactor walls, engineers said burying the Fukushima complex in concrete and sand was an absolute last resort.
That strategy, which was used when the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine exploded in 1986, would represent a worst-case conclusion to the nuclear crisis, and leave an area just 240km north of Tokyo effectively off-limits for decades.
Efforts to avoid that, including dumping water from helicopters, focused yesterday on running power cables to two of the damaged reactors so coolant pumps could be restarted.
It is not known whether the combined effects of the earthquake, tsunami and hydrogen explosions have left the pumps able to perform the vital task of cooling the most threatened part of the plant -- the third reactor, with its dangerously low pool of water and its "dirty bomb" viscera of radioactive fuel.
Akio Komiri, the managing director of TEPCO, broke down after a briefing on the situation.
And Yukio Edano, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, admitted the country had been overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis.
Beyond the gates of the Fukushima plant, medics, working around the clock at hospitals within the 30km zone where residents have been told to remain indoors, described a situation where people were not prepared to deliver vital supplies inside the zone.
Those who could not leave -- the elderly and sick -- were being starved of food, fuel, water and medicine and "left to die".
In comments that appeared to presage the sort of apologies and resignations that have come after nearly every Japanese disaster, the government's top spokesman admitted the administration had been slow to co-ordinate and dispense information. His remarks boded ominously for a proposed evacuation of 11,000 people from Fukushima prefecture.
Re: Japan: death toll could exceed 18,000, Nuclear problems continue
Thank you Neemo for posting. It seems like the news from there is always a few days behind. Here is some footage to go with what you posted. This was uploaded last week. You can see the structure damage clearly.
US Drones Confirms Exposed Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Fuel Rods
- IRISH OS1R1S
- Rep: 59
Re: Japan: death toll could exceed 18,000, Nuclear problems continue
[youtube]3fqyOpqnJyw&feature=related[/youtube]
Re: Japan: death toll could exceed 18,000, Nuclear problems continue
BLABBERMOUTH.NET
LINKIN PARK Leads Continuing Efforts For Japan Relief http://bit.ly/fGRi4D
Re: Japan: death toll could exceed 18,000, Nuclear problems continue
Rolling Stone
How musicians like @LadyGaga, U2, @rihanna, @thesonicyouth and more are raising money to help Japan: http://bit.ly/fs2KIQ
Re: Japan: death toll could exceed 18,000, Nuclear problems continue
Japan death toll: 9,800 bodies, more than 17,500 missing
Published On Thu Mar 24 2011EmailPrint
YURIKO NAKAO/REUTERS
Associated Press
TOKYO—Japan's police agency says more than 9,800 people are dead after an earthquake and tsunami. Another 17,500 are missing.
Those tallies may overlap, but a police spokesman from one of the hardest-hit prefectures, Miyagi, estimates that the deaths will top 15,000 in that region alone. Police in other devastated areas declined to estimate eventual tolls, but said the confirmed deaths in their areas already number about 4,100.
The National Police Agency said the overall number of bodies collected so far stood at 9,811, while 17,541 have been listed as missing.
Re: Japan: death toll could exceed 18,000, Nuclear problems continue
More radioactive water spills at Japan nuke plant
TOKYO – Workers discovered new pools of radioactive water leaking from Japan's crippled nuclear complex, officials said Monday, as emergency crews struggled to pump out hundreds of tons of contaminated water and bring the plant back under control.
Officials believe the contaminated water has sent radioactivity levels soaring at the coastal complex and caused more radiation to seep into soil and seawater. Crews also found traces of plutonium in the soil outside of the complex on Monday, but officials insisted there was no threat to public health.
Plutonium — a key ingredient in nuclear weapons — is present in the fuel at the complex, which has been leaking radiation for over two weeks, so experts had expected some to be found once crews began searching for evidence of it this week.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. official Jun Tsuruoka said only two of the plutonium samples taken Monday were from the leaking reactors. The other three were from earlier nuclear tests. Years of weapons testing in the atmosphere left trace amounts of plutonium in many places around the world.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, was crippled March 11 when a tsunami spawned by a powerful earthquake slammed into Japan's northeastern coast. The huge wave engulfed much of the complex, and destroyed the crucial power systems needed to cool the complex's nuclear fuel rods.
Since then, three of the complex's six units are believed to have partially melted down, and emergency crews have struggled with everything from malfunctioning pumps to dangerous spikes in radiation that have forced temporary evacuations.
Confusion at the plant has intensified fears that the nuclear crisis will last weeks, months or years amid alarms over radiation making its way into produce, raw milk and even tap water as far away as Tokyo.
The troubles at the Fukushima complex have eclipsed Pennsylvania's 1979 crisis at Three Mile Island, when a partial meltdown raised fears of widespread radiation release, but is still well short of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which killed at least 31 people with radiation sickness, raised long-term cancer rates, and spewed radiation across much of the northern hemisphere.
That has left officials struggling with two sometimes-contradictory efforts: pumping in water to keep the fuel rods cool and pumping out — and then safely storing — contaminated water.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, called that balance "very delicate work."
He also said workers were still looking for safe ways to store the radioactive water.
"We are exploring all means," he said.
The buildup of radioactive water first became a problem last week, when it splashed over the boots of two workers, burning them and prompting a temporary suspension of work.
Then on Monday, officials with Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns and runs the complex, said that workers had found more radioactive water in deep trenches used for pipes and electrical wiring outside three units.
The contaminated water has been emitting radiation exposures more than four times the amount that the government considers safe for workers.
The five workers in the area at the time were not hurt, said TEPCO spokesman Takashi Kurita.
Exactly where the water is coming from remains unclear, though many suspect it is cooling water that has leaked from one of the disabled reactors.
It could take weeks to pump out the radioactive water, said Gary Was, a nuclear engineering professor at the University of Michigan.
"Battling the contamination so workers can work there is going to be an ongoing problem," he said.
Meanwhile, new readings showed ocean contamination had spread about a mile (1.6 kilometers) farther north of the nuclear site than before but is still within the 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius of the evacuation zone. Radioactive iodine-131 was discovered offshore at a level 1,150 times higher than normal, Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told reporters.
Amid reports that people had been sneaking back into the mandatory evacuation zone around the nuclear complex, the chief government spokesman again urged residents to stay out. Yukio Edano said contaminants posed a "big" health risk in that area.
Gregory Jaczko, head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, arrived in Tokyo on Monday to meet with Japanese officials and discuss the situation, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.
"The unprecedented challenge before us remains serious, and our best experts remain fully engaged to help Japan," Jaczko was quoted as saying.
Early Monday, a strong earthquake shook the northeastern coast and prompted a brief tsunami alert. The quake was measured at magnitude 6.5, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. No damage or injuries were reported.
Scores of earthquakes have rattled the country over the past two weeks, adding to the sense of unease across Japan, where the final death toll is expected to top 18,000 people, with hundreds of thousands still homeless.
TEPCO officials said Sunday that radiation in leaking water in Unit 2 was 10 million times above normal — a report that sent employees fleeing. But the day ended with officials saying that figure had been miscalculated and the level was actually 100,000 times above normal, still very high but far better than the earlier results.
"This sort of mistake is not something that can be forgiven," Edano said sternly Monday.
Re: Japan: death toll could exceed 18,000, Nuclear problems continue
Former/Current Members Of AC/DC, WHITESNAKE, DIO, DOKKEN To Perform At Japan Benefit Concert - Mar. 30, 2011
Former and current members of AC/DC, DIO, WHITESNAKE, RATT, DOKKEN, THIN LIZZY and MEGADETH are among the musicians who are scheduled to take part in the '80s Rockers For Japan benefit concert on Saturday, April 16 at Harper's in Reseda, California. Organized by singer Terry Ilous (XYZ, GREAT WHITE), the show will feature musicians from some of the '80s most popular rock and metal bands.
Ilous and Jeff Paris have written a song and are creating a video that will feature many of the participating musicians. The song will be recorded, and the video shot, live at the benefit event. It will subsequently be available on iTunes. Proceeds from the event and sales of the track and video will be donated to the American Red Cross Japan earthquake and Pacific tsunami relief efforts.
"Japan has always been very supportive of our kind of music, and this is our small way of giving back," says Ilous.
Musicians who are scheduled to appear (subject to change):
* Chris Slade (AC/DC, THE FIRM)
* Rudy Sarzo (DIO, QUIET RIOT, WHITESNAKE, OZZY OSBOURNE, BLUE ÖYSTER CULT)
* Brian Tichy (WHITESNAKE, FOREIGNER, BILLY IDOL)
* Richie Kotzen (POISON, MR. BIG)
* Juan Croucier (RATT)
* Jon Levin (DOKKEN)
* John Payne (ASIA)
* Teddy Zigzag (GUNS N' ROSES)
* James Lomenzo (MEGADETH, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY)
* Marco Mendoza (THIN LIZZY, WHITESNAKE)
* Robin McAuley (SURVIVOR, MSG)
* Simon Wright (DIO, AC/DC, UFO)
* Robert Sarzo (HURRICANE)
* Mitch Perry (MSG, ASIA, EDGAR WINTER)
Other vocalists contributing to the benefit song include Don Dokken and Paul Shortino. The show will also feature guitarist Michael Thompson, an American musician well known in Japan. Line6 will provide the backline and Spaun Drum Company will provide all drums.
A live streaming broadcast will be made available via Front Row Entertainment (Frontrowent.tv) and viewers will be able to watch the event for free online; a link to the Red Cross will be provided and the musicians who are participating request that those watching make a small donation.
