ID :
167696
Sat, 03/12/2011 - 20:05
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/167696
The shortlink copeid
Explosion in Japan's N-Reactor as quake toll rises to 1,700
Tokyo (PTI) - An explosion at a nuclear power plant
in Japan destroyed the building housing the reactor on Sunday
triggering radiation leaks under the impact of the massive
quake and the tsunami it spawned which has left at least 1,700
people dead or unaccounted for.
The radiation leak was low after the explosion destroyed
the exterior walls of the building where the reactor is
placed, but not the actual metal housing enveloping the
reactor, Government spokesman Yukio Edano told reporters. The
explosion which left four persons injured led to a "nationwide
atomic alert".
Kyodo news agency said the combined number of people who
have died or are unaccounted for in Friday's double disaster
that devastated the country's north-western coast is feared to
top 1,700.
Local media reports said at least 1,300 may have been
killed while Chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said it
was believed that more than 1,000 people had died.
There were fears that the death toll would rise with Fuji
TV reporting that as many as 10,000 people were missing in the
town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi. One report said four whole
trains had disappeared and still not been located.
The building housing the main reactor at Fukushima
nuclear plant in northern Japan, 250 km north of Tokyo,
exploded this afternoon leading to radiation leaks injuring
four people as the authorities told 45,000 residents living
within a 10-km radius of the leaking plant to evacuate their
homes, Kyodo reported. The injuries are not life threatening,
an official said.
"The plant is experiencing a nuclear meltdown," Japanese
nuclear scientists confirmed, after Prime Minister Naoto Kan
visited the site in a helicopter early on Saturday.
Kan urged calm among people living near the plant and
vowed the government would do its best to protect public
health.
"By taking firm measures, we will do our best not to
have even a single person, suffer from health problems," he
said.
Reports said the main building of the plant housing
the reactor as well as the outer walls were blown away in the
high intensity explosion which occurred at 3.30 pm local time
(1200 IST) as the cooling water levels dropped alarmingly
through evaporation after the quake had damaged the main
plant.
"The loss of cooling water is leading to a meltdown of
the reactor," Jiji Press reported.
Radioacative materials--cesium and iodine--were also
detected around the No 1 rector of the plant, according to the
Nuclear and Industrial safety Agency.
The concerns about a radiation leak at the nuclear
power plant overshadowed the massive tragedy laid out along a
2,100 km stretch of the coastline where scores of villages,
towns and cities were battered by the tsunami packing 23-feet
high waves triggered by the massive 8.9 magnitude quake.
TV footage showed smoke billowing from the site and
reported that the reactor building had been destroyed. The
channels and public broadcasters warned nearby residents to
turn off air conditioners and not to drink tap water.
People going outside were told to avoid exposing their
skins and to cover faces with masks and wet towels.
Kyodo quoting police said that another nuclear plant
adjacent to the one which exploded was also malfunctioning
with the radiation level reaching almost 1,000 times the
normal level.
The authorities said that an emergency had been
declared at all five nuclear reactors as the units had lost
cooling ability, as US dispatched plane loads of coolants to
the disaster-struck nation.
They said that Fukushima, Daiichi plant unit no. 1 had
exploded after failing to tamp down heat and pressure inside
the reactor which had suffered extensive damaged due to tidal
waves set off by the earth quake which cut down the power
supply to the plant.
Japan's Nuclear Safety Agency described the situation
at the Fukushima plant dire.
Defence Ministry officials said dozens of troops and
fireman trained for chemical disasters had been dispatched to
the plant, which is located South of the Miyagi Prefecture
which was hardest hit by the quake.
As Japan is one of the most seismically active country
in the world, the government met has strict set of regulations
designed to limit the impact of quakes on nuclear plants. But
even so 10 of the Japan's 54 commercial reactors were shut
down because of the quake.
Meanwhile, four trains running in a coastal area of
Miyagi and Iwate prefectures remained unaccounted for, the
train operator said.
It is not known how many people were aboard the trains
that were running on East Japan Railway Co.'s Ofunato, Senseki
and Kesennuma lines on the Pacific coast when the quake hit
northern Japan.
The company said earlier that another train on the
Senseki Line was found derailed near Nobiru Station after the
quake. The Miyagi prefectural police on Saturday rescued nine
passengers from the train by helicopter, Kyodo said.
The number of partially or completely destroyed
buildings reached 3,400, while there 200 incidents of fire at
quake-affected areas. Some 181 welfare facilities, including
nursing homes, had been damaged.
Around 200 to 300 bodies were found in Sendai's
Wakabayashi Ward, they said. Some 1,800 houses in Fukushima
Prefecture were found to have been destroyed.
As rescuers have not been able to completely access
the tsunami-hit areas with tsunami warnings still in effect,
the overall picture of the destruction remained unclear.
LDALL QUAKE 3 LAST
A municipal official of the town of Futaba, Fukushima,
said, "More than 90 per cent of the houses in three coastal
communities have been washed away by tsunami. Looking from the
fourth floor of the town hall, I see no houses standing."
In the quake-hit areas, around 5.57 million households
had lost power, while 600,000 had their water supply cut off.
Nine expressways were closed and at least 312 domestic
flights cancelled. The Tokyo police said more than 120,000
people in the capital were unable to return home on Friday
evening due to the suspension of train operations and traffic
jams.
Rescue teams from South Korea, Australia, New Zealand,
Singapore and other countries were set to arrive in Japan,
after 50 nations offered support following the powerful
earthquake, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.
In Washington US President Barack Obama called
Japanese Prime Minister Kan to offer help.
"(First Lady) Michelle (Obama) and I send our deepest
condolences to the people of Japan, particularly those who
have lost loved ones in the earthquake and tsunamis," Obama
said in a statement.
in Japan destroyed the building housing the reactor on Sunday
triggering radiation leaks under the impact of the massive
quake and the tsunami it spawned which has left at least 1,700
people dead or unaccounted for.
The radiation leak was low after the explosion destroyed
the exterior walls of the building where the reactor is
placed, but not the actual metal housing enveloping the
reactor, Government spokesman Yukio Edano told reporters. The
explosion which left four persons injured led to a "nationwide
atomic alert".
Kyodo news agency said the combined number of people who
have died or are unaccounted for in Friday's double disaster
that devastated the country's north-western coast is feared to
top 1,700.
Local media reports said at least 1,300 may have been
killed while Chief government spokesman Yukio Edano said it
was believed that more than 1,000 people had died.
There were fears that the death toll would rise with Fuji
TV reporting that as many as 10,000 people were missing in the
town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi. One report said four whole
trains had disappeared and still not been located.
The building housing the main reactor at Fukushima
nuclear plant in northern Japan, 250 km north of Tokyo,
exploded this afternoon leading to radiation leaks injuring
four people as the authorities told 45,000 residents living
within a 10-km radius of the leaking plant to evacuate their
homes, Kyodo reported. The injuries are not life threatening,
an official said.
"The plant is experiencing a nuclear meltdown," Japanese
nuclear scientists confirmed, after Prime Minister Naoto Kan
visited the site in a helicopter early on Saturday.
Kan urged calm among people living near the plant and
vowed the government would do its best to protect public
health.
"By taking firm measures, we will do our best not to
have even a single person, suffer from health problems," he
said.
Reports said the main building of the plant housing
the reactor as well as the outer walls were blown away in the
high intensity explosion which occurred at 3.30 pm local time
(1200 IST) as the cooling water levels dropped alarmingly
through evaporation after the quake had damaged the main
plant.
"The loss of cooling water is leading to a meltdown of
the reactor," Jiji Press reported.
Radioacative materials--cesium and iodine--were also
detected around the No 1 rector of the plant, according to the
Nuclear and Industrial safety Agency.
The concerns about a radiation leak at the nuclear
power plant overshadowed the massive tragedy laid out along a
2,100 km stretch of the coastline where scores of villages,
towns and cities were battered by the tsunami packing 23-feet
high waves triggered by the massive 8.9 magnitude quake.
TV footage showed smoke billowing from the site and
reported that the reactor building had been destroyed. The
channels and public broadcasters warned nearby residents to
turn off air conditioners and not to drink tap water.
People going outside were told to avoid exposing their
skins and to cover faces with masks and wet towels.
Kyodo quoting police said that another nuclear plant
adjacent to the one which exploded was also malfunctioning
with the radiation level reaching almost 1,000 times the
normal level.
The authorities said that an emergency had been
declared at all five nuclear reactors as the units had lost
cooling ability, as US dispatched plane loads of coolants to
the disaster-struck nation.
They said that Fukushima, Daiichi plant unit no. 1 had
exploded after failing to tamp down heat and pressure inside
the reactor which had suffered extensive damaged due to tidal
waves set off by the earth quake which cut down the power
supply to the plant.
Japan's Nuclear Safety Agency described the situation
at the Fukushima plant dire.
Defence Ministry officials said dozens of troops and
fireman trained for chemical disasters had been dispatched to
the plant, which is located South of the Miyagi Prefecture
which was hardest hit by the quake.
As Japan is one of the most seismically active country
in the world, the government met has strict set of regulations
designed to limit the impact of quakes on nuclear plants. But
even so 10 of the Japan's 54 commercial reactors were shut
down because of the quake.
Meanwhile, four trains running in a coastal area of
Miyagi and Iwate prefectures remained unaccounted for, the
train operator said.
It is not known how many people were aboard the trains
that were running on East Japan Railway Co.'s Ofunato, Senseki
and Kesennuma lines on the Pacific coast when the quake hit
northern Japan.
The company said earlier that another train on the
Senseki Line was found derailed near Nobiru Station after the
quake. The Miyagi prefectural police on Saturday rescued nine
passengers from the train by helicopter, Kyodo said.
The number of partially or completely destroyed
buildings reached 3,400, while there 200 incidents of fire at
quake-affected areas. Some 181 welfare facilities, including
nursing homes, had been damaged.
Around 200 to 300 bodies were found in Sendai's
Wakabayashi Ward, they said. Some 1,800 houses in Fukushima
Prefecture were found to have been destroyed.
As rescuers have not been able to completely access
the tsunami-hit areas with tsunami warnings still in effect,
the overall picture of the destruction remained unclear.
LDALL QUAKE 3 LAST
A municipal official of the town of Futaba, Fukushima,
said, "More than 90 per cent of the houses in three coastal
communities have been washed away by tsunami. Looking from the
fourth floor of the town hall, I see no houses standing."
In the quake-hit areas, around 5.57 million households
had lost power, while 600,000 had their water supply cut off.
Nine expressways were closed and at least 312 domestic
flights cancelled. The Tokyo police said more than 120,000
people in the capital were unable to return home on Friday
evening due to the suspension of train operations and traffic
jams.
Rescue teams from South Korea, Australia, New Zealand,
Singapore and other countries were set to arrive in Japan,
after 50 nations offered support following the powerful
earthquake, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.
In Washington US President Barack Obama called
Japanese Prime Minister Kan to offer help.
"(First Lady) Michelle (Obama) and I send our deepest
condolences to the people of Japan, particularly those who
have lost loved ones in the earthquake and tsunamis," Obama
said in a statement.
