Blast, Fuel Rod Exposure Raise Fears of Japan Meltdown

For the second time in three harrowing days, a hydrogen explosion at one of Japan's crippled reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant blew the roof off a containment building — this time on Monday morning at reactor unit No. 3.Eleven workers at the plant were injured, and the force of the blast apparently damaged a pump that workers had brought in to douse the reactor's fuel rods with seawater — the stopgap method they are using to cool the fuel rods in the wake of the tsunami that on Friday disabled the electric generator powering the reactors' cooling system. The same sort of explosion devastated reactor unit No. 1 on Saturday, sending plumes of white smoke into the air. Monday's blast was yet further evidence of the difficulties Japanese authorities are encountering as they try to prevent what could be a calamitous nuclear accident.Late on Monday, officials announced that the problems at the Fukushima plant were intensifying: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the cooling system at reactor unit No. 2 had also failed and that TEPCO (the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns and operates the plant) was going to try to flood that unit with seawater, just as it was doing at the other two crippled reactors, to try to cool off the fuel rods.As grim as the news is, the situation is not yet a calamity. Critically, the fuel rods at Fukushima remain inside their steel containment vessels, and there is no indication that those vessels have been damaged. Moreover, though some radiation has been released into the air in order to reduce pressure inside the troubled reactors, Edano said on Monday that atmospheric radiation was not at a dangerous level and that the government believes it is "unlikely" that large amounts of radiation will be released into the atmosphere. Still, more than 200,000 Japanese who live within a 12-mile (19 km) radius of the nuclear plant have been evacuated as a precaution.The problem, nuclear scientists say, is that the effort to pump in sufficient amounts of seawater to cool the fuel rods could fail, leading to a partial or full meltdown. James Acton, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says that "anytime you have core melting, you have the risk of a substantial release of radiation." But he and others add that an extensive core meltdown does not guarantee a disastrous release of radiation. At Three Mile Island near Middletown, Pa., in 1979, Acton says, there was "significant core melting, but a substantial radiation release did not occur" because the containment vessels were not breached.Experts differ in their opinions on whether a large-scale radiation release can be avoided in Fukushima, as it was in Pennsylvania 32 years ago. Edward Lyman, a senior scientist at the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, cites a study by Sandia National Laboratories titled "Risk-Informed Assessment of Degraded Containment Vessels" that notes that the type of reactors at work at Fukushima are "unusually vulnerable to containment failure in the event of a core melt accident." The most likely failure scenario, Lyman says, "involves the molten fuel burning through the reactor vessel, spilling onto the containment floor and spreading until it contacts and breeches the steel containment-vessel wall." He acknowledges that it's "not straightforward to interpret [the results of the Sandia study] in the context of the very complicated and uncertain situation at Fukushima. But they are a clear indication of a worrisome vulnerability of the [containment vessel] should the core completely melt and escape the reactor vessel."The key is to avoid a "core melt accident," which is why TEPCO workers are frantically trying to pump seawater into all three of the damaged reactors. But as Monday drew to a close in Japan, it wasn't clear if the Fukushima plant had moved away from the worst-case scenario, or if the latest explosion meant it had drawn even closer.(Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2058700,00.html)

Japan's Nuclear Emergency: How to Stop a Meltdown

The one quick solution to the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power facility is to restore power to it. There is an irony to that observation: a nuclear power plant in need of power. But the problem at unit 1 at Fukushima Daiichi began with a double whammy: the 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan that apparently knocked out its main source of electrical power; and the resulting tsunami that put the facility's back-up power supply out of commission.The improbable one-two punch resulted in what is called a "station blackout," according to Kenneth Bergeron, a physicist who used to work on nuclear reactor accident simulation at Sandia National Laboratories in the United States. The likelihood of the scenario was so low that few statisticians expected it ever to happen. But it has in Fukushima.The lack of power meant that unit 1 could not pump enough water to cool the uranium fuel rods at the heart of the reactor — hence the decision early Sunday morning to flood it with nearby and plentiful sea water in a last-ditch attempt to avert a catastrophic meltdown, a tactic one expert called "a Hail Mary pass." What is key is either rebooting Fukushima's electrical generators (both AC and diesel) or shipping in units powerful enough to pump coolant into the reactor at a sufficient rate and volume to bring the heat down.Otherwise, the plant will have to depend on good timing and a lot of luck. The timing depends on how fast the fuel rods lose heat. After the quake, the reactor had shut down and so the fuel rods had already begun their cool-down. That cooling starts from the equivalent of 50 megawatts of power, an enormous amount of heat — but the uranium rods lose heat at a curve so, Bergeron estimates, a few days of stop-gap measures may be all that's required to keep something catastrophic from happening.The trouble with that scenario is that it all depends on intervening events. The reported presence of Cesium 127 was disturbing because the element is usually evidence that the reactor core has overheated, if only for a portion of time. The radioactive debris is produced when the core is exposed above the coolant water level and then overheats. All it takes is 20 to 50 minutes of exposure to produce enough heat to let off Cesium 127. One of the other potential by-products of such overheating is hydrogen, which is produced when the zirconium sheaths around the uranium rods form a chemical reaction with the heat and steam. Hydrogen is believed to be the cause of the explosion at Fukushima on Saturday that was captured on videotape and alarmed not only Japan but most of the watching world.What happens next depends on whether enough coolant is reintroduced or whether the uranium rods are cooling fast enough on their own to avoid a meltdown. It also depends on how old the fuel rods are: fresher rods cool down faster; older ones take much longer. The harbinger in this regard is that Fukushima's reactors are of a decades-old design and unit 1 was reportedly scheduled to be retired later this month.If the rods remain hot enough and exposed above the necessary level of cooling water, they will start to melt. If this condition — called slumping — is unarrested, the material will eventually puddle on the containment floor and probably eat away at it, eventually becoming exposed to the external environment. There is still a possibility of introducing enough coolant before that happens to impede damage, but because the geometry of the rods — their very shape — is lost through melting, water's ability to wrap around and cool the radioactive material is greatly diminished. What you have is a large amount of liquid sitting above deadly sludge but not completely enveloping it, and so it continues to eat away at the bottom.All of this can happen in a matter of days. At Fukushima — and throughout Japan, as rescuers search for survivors of the earthquake and tsunami — time is of the essence.(Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2058615,00.html)

Japan Struggles with Nuclear Reactors in Wake of Quake

Tokyo (CNN) -- A meltdown may be under way at one of Fukushima Daiichi's nuclear power reactors in northern Japan, an official with Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told CNN Sunday."There is a possibility, we see the possibility of a meltdown," said Toshihiro Bannai, director of the agency's international affairs office, in a telephone interview from the agency's headquarters in Tokyo. "At this point, we have still not confirmed that there is an actual meltdown, but there is a possibility."A meltdown is a catastrophic failure of the reactor core, with a potential for widespread radiation release.Though Bannai said engineers have been unable to get close enough to the core to know what's going on, he based his conclusion on the fact that they measured radioactive isotopes in the air Saturday night."What we have seen is only the slight indication from a monitoring post of cesium and iodine," he said. Since then, he said, plant officials have injected sea water and boron into the plant in an effort to cool its nuclear fuel and stop any reactions."We have some confidence, to some extent, to make the situation to be stable status," he said. "We actually have very good confidence that we will resolve this."A state of emergency has been declared for the plant and two other reactors at the same complex, which holds a total of six reactors, he said. Three are in a safe, shut-down state, he said. "The other two still have some cooling systems, but not enough capacity."But Ichiro Fujisaki, Japan's ambassador to the United States, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in Washington that he did not know of any evidence of a meltdown."We are working on it," he said. "We are getting information every hour on this issue."And Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, raised another possible issue. "Some of the readings in the measurement equipment were not accurate," he said without elaboration.He noted that since the inside of the pressure vessel has been filled with sea water, radiation levels in the area have not risen, implying that the problem was not worsening.The detection of a cesium isotope indicates that the nuclear fuel cladding has failed, said Ken Bergeron, a physicist and former scientist at Sandia National Laboratories."Now we have to hope that the containment building will succeed in preventing major amounts of radioactivity" from escaping, he said.As of Sunday morning, winds in northeast Japan were blowing out to sea at 5-15 mph, said CNN Meteorologist Taylor Ward. But they were expected to reverse direction by Monday night, he said. The Daiichi plant is located about 160 miles (260 kilometers) north of Tokyo."We're in uncharted territory," Bergeron said. "We're in the land where probability says we shouldn't be and we're hoping that all the barriers to release radioactivity will not fail.""The bottom line is that we just don't know what's going to happen in the next couple of days and, frankly, neither do the people who run the system," said Dr. Ira Helfand, a member of the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility.What we do know, he added, is that Japan's nuclear facilities are "way out of whack."Cesium 137 can remain dangerous for 600 years and is associated with a number of cancers, he said.The use of sea water and boron was described as a "Hail Mary pass" by Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies focused on energy policies and a former senior policy adviser to the U.S. secretary of energy."My understanding is that the situation has become desperate enough that they apparently don't have the capability to deliver fresh water or plain water to cool the reactor and stabilize it and now, in an act of desperation, are having to resort to diverting and using sea water," he said.Boron, a chemical element, was being added to the water "to sort of stymie other potential nuclear reactions," he said.Boron has the ability to absorb neutrons, the sub-atomic particles that occur in the nucleus of all atoms. In a nuclear reactor, it is essential that just the right number of neutrons are present. Too many neutrons can cause a fission reaction to get out of control. Too few neutrons and a fission reaction stops.But, he acknowledged Sunday to reporters in a conference call, "There's a lot that we don't know about what's happening with these reactors. It's trying to piece together a picture where you're dealing with just a few pieces of the puzzle."Another expert said enough was known to conclude that the nuclear events in Japan rank high on the list of similar incidents. "If this accident stops right now, it will already be one of the three worst accidents we have ever had at a nuclear power plant in the history of nuclear power," said Joseph Cirincione, an expert on nuclear materials and president of the U.S.-based Ploughshares Fund, a firm involved in security and peace funding.He said only the 1979 partial meltdown of a reactor core at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union were worse.If the effort to cool the nuclear fuel inside the reactor fails completely -- a scenario experts who have spoken to CNN say is unlikely -- the resulting release of radiation could cause enormous damage to the plant or release radiation into the atmosphere or water. That could lead to widespread cancer and other health problems, experts say.The problems reported at two other reactors in the complex stemmed from a similar cause: an insufficient amount of water being pumped into the cores in an attempt to keep them cool.To ease the pressure inside reactor No. 3, air containing "some minimal radioactive material" was being vented from its containment vessel, Edano said, expressing confidence in the outcome. "We believe that we can stabilize the situation of the reactor," he said.An evacuation order affected more than 200,000 people living within 20 kilometers of the plants, officials said.Some experts said the flow of information from the agency has not been fast enough.But IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano defended the Japanese response. "I know the Japanese authorities are working their hardest to gather the necessary details and ensure safety under difficult and constantly evolving circumstances," he said in a statement.Japanese authorities have classified the event at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 as a level 4 "accident with local consequences" on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale intended to communicate to the public the significance of radiation-linked events. The scale runs from 0 to 7, with the latter being classified as a major accident.On Saturday night, three patients at a hospital tested positive for radiation exposure, according to the Japanese public broadcasting station NHK, citing a statement from Fukushima Prefecture.The three had been randomly selected from a group of 90 hospital workers and patients who were outside the hospital -- about three kilometers from the Daiichi plant -- awaiting evacuation at the time of the explosion. The patients had already been hospitalized at the medical facility prior to Friday's quake.While the three showed signed of exposure, "no abnormal health conditions have been observed," NHK quoted the prefecture as saying.Meanwhile, two experts from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission with expertise in boiling-water nuclear reactors like those affected by the disaster have been sent to Japan as part of a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) team.The NRC's Maryland-based headquarters operations center has been operating round the clock since the beginning of the emergency.The Japanese government was preparing to distribute iodine tablets to residents, the IAEA said. Iodine is commonly recommended to block the uptake by the thyroid gland of radioactive iodine.The problems at the Daiichi plant began Friday when the 8.9-magnitude quake struck off the eastern shore of Miyagi Prefecture. The quake forced the automatic shutdown of the plant's nuclear reactors and knocked out the main cooling system, according to the country's nuclear agency.A tsunami resulting from the quake then washed over the site, knocking out backup generators that pumped water into the reactor containment unit to keep the nuclear fuel cool, according to the agency.As pressure and temperatures rose inside the reactors at the Daiichi and Daini plants, authorities ordered the release of valves at the plants -- a move that experts said was likely done to release growing pressure inside as high temperatures caused water to boil and produce excess steam.As crews were working to pump additional water into the reactor containment unit to lower the temperature, the pumping system failed, Edano said, causing the explosion that injured four workers and bringing down the walls of the building containing the reactor.The International Atomic Energy Agency, citing Japanese authorities, said the explosion occurred outside the plant's primary containment vessel and that the vessel remained intact. The explosion injured four workers, it said.Nine residents near the site of the explosion got radioactive material on their clothing and were being decontaminated, Bergeron said. "Now, we're trying to make sure they have not been internally exposed to radioactive material."He described their exposure as "not hazardous to health."The team then reverted to the plan to flood the reactor with sea water, which Edano said would lower the temperature to acceptable levels. That work began Saturday night and was expected to take two days, Edano said.Japan is heavily dependent on nuclear power, with 54 plants and another eight slated for construction, said Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action, an environmental group. All are located in "very seismic" areas, she said.(Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.nuclear/index.html?section=cnn_latest)

JAPAN: Earthquake and Tsunami 2011

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake of 8.9. magnitude struck off the coast of Japan, the strongest ever recorded in the country. The quake churned up a devastating tsunami that swept over cities and farmland in the northern part of the country and set off warnings as far away the west coast of the United States and South America.The next day, Japanese news media estimates of the death toll ranged between 1,300 and 1,700, but the total could well rise. Many communities were scrambling to find the missing; in the port town of Minamisanriku, nearly 10,000 people were still unaccounted for. More than 300,000 people have been evacuated.Japan mounted a nationwide rescue effort to pluck survivors from collapsed buildings and rush food and water to thousands in an earthquake and tsunami zone under siege, without water, electricity, heat or telephone service. Severe aftershocks continued to rock a traumatized country.Nuclear Emergency: An explosion at a nuclear power plant in northern Japan on March 12 blew the roof off one building and destroyed the exterior walls of a crippled reactor, escalating the "atomic emergency'' that had been declared the day before.Officials that leaks of radioactive material from the plant, which began before the explosion, were receding and that a major meltdown was not imminent. But severe problems at two nuclear plants close to the epicenter of the quake forced evacuations of tens of thousands of people from surrounding areas, hampering efforts to search for survivors and forcing Japan’s leadership to grapple with two major crises as the same time.U.S. Offers Help: Several ships from the United States Navy joined the rescue effort. The McCampbell and the Curtis Wilbur, both destroyers, prepared to move into position off Miyagi Prefecture to assist Japanese forces with search and rescue efforts. In addition, the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group was en route and was expected to arrive on March 13. The ship can serve as a floating platform for refueling helicopters from the Japanese Self-Defense Forces working more closely to shore. Japan was also accepting offers of help from other countries.Nature of the Quake: The quake occurred in what is called a subduction zone, where one of the Earth’s tectonic plates is sliding beneath another. In this case, the Pacific plate is sliding beneath the North American at a rate of about 3 inches a year. The earthquake occurred at a depth of about 15 miles, which while relatively shallow by global standards is about normal for quakes in this zone, said Emily So, an engineer with the United States Geological Survey in Golden, Colo.Ms. So said that according to her agency’s calculations, the quake was of magnitude 8.9. It had been preceded by what seismologists call foreshocks — smaller quakes in the same area. The largest of these was a magnitude 7.2 quake two days before, centered about 25 miles south of the spot where the earthquake struck Friday.In a subduction quake that occurs underwater, as this one did, the sudden movement of a portion of one of the plates can displace enormous amounts of water, triggering a tsunami. As the tsunami waves approach shallow coastal areas, they tend to increase in height.The quake was less powerful than the 9.1-magnitude quake that struck off Northern Sumatra in late 2004. That quake spawned a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people around the Indian Ocean.Japan's Preparations: From seawalls that line stretches of coastline, to skyscrapers that sway to absorb earthquakes, to building codes that are among the world’s most rigorous, no country may be better prepared to withstand earthquakes than Japan. Had any other populous country suffered the 8.9 magnitude earthquake, tens of thousands of people might already be counted among the dead.(Source: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/japan/index.html)

Daylight Saving Time: Remind me again why we "Spring Forward"?

The official switch takes place at 2 a.m. Sunday – though, once you twist your watch stem or push the button on digital timepieces, it'll be 3 a.m.The annual ritual, which ends the first Sunday in November, when we get the hour back, has its holdouts.Arizona, for one, does not make the shift – although if you're fastidious about changing your watch and you happen to be traveling through the Navajo and Hopi nations that take up the much of the state's northeast, you'll stay busy. The Navajo make the switch; the Hopi, surrounded by the Navajo, do not.Hawaii also forgoes the change. It occupies a latitude close enough to the equator that the hours of daylight it sees as the seasons change don't vary much.A northern hemisphere practiceGlobally, the use of "summer" time, as many countries call the change, shows a strong north-south divide. The vast majority of countries using it are in the northern hemisphere, while the vast majority of countries south of the equator don't change their clocks during the longer periods of daylight in the austral spring and summer. (Argentina's Daylight Savings Time, though, has proved vexing.)That makes sense for countries close to the equator, acknowledges John Lowe, an engineer with the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) time and frequency division at the institutes's lab in Boulder, Colo. But for countries in Africa and South America that that occupy mid latitudes, the reasons for their different customs are less clear, he adds.Indeed, the reasons given for making the change at all in the 21st century are not very satisfying, he suggests."The idea that it saves energy is tough to prove or test or believe in today's modern world, where today's 24/7 activities seem to be the norm," he says. One recent study even concludes that energy costs go up during Daylight Saving Time.Others add that economically, it appears to be a wash, with some industries and activities benefiting from the change and others claiming it hurts them. Nor is it clear that the gains or losses claimed are economically significant, at least from a national standpoint.Whose bright idea was this, anyway?The notion of moving clock hands around to take advantage of more hours of daylight has its roots in the evolution of the concept of standard time, notes Geoff Chester, a spokesman for the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Where NIST is the nation's civilian timekeeper, the USNO performs the same function for the military. [Editor's note: The original mistakenly placed the naval observatory with the UN.]Before the advent of railroads, timekeeping was a geographic mess. Greenwich Mean Time was the basic standard for navigation, particularly for determining longitude. But noon corresponded to the time when the sun was most directly overhead. So clocks in Chicago didn't match clocks in Gary, Ind., or Des Moines, Iowa.Then, in the 1840s, British railroads developed "railroad time" to inject a sense of order into train schedules that were accidents waiting to happen. The same motive drove railroads in the US to follow suit."With 50 railroads operating off of dozens of timetables, if you didn't pay attention, you'd have two trains heading for each other on the same track," Mr. Chester explains. But the time zone boundaries tended to run through major rail hubs.The notion of standard, one-hour time zones was codified in the US in 1918 as offsets measured against Greenwich Mean Time. Today the standard –coordinated universal time (UTC) – is set by atomic clocks rather than the length of one rotation of the Earth.The shift to daylight time began in Germany during the World War I as a way to ease the pinch of coal shortages and to give people more time to get work done before air raid blackouts took effect each day.Other countries took up the practice until the war's end. It was reinstated in America during World War II. The US made the change standard practice in 1996. Since then, Congress has twice extended the stretch of calendar subject to Daylight Saving Time. The most recent took effect in 2007.Sing along with Tevye: 'Tradition!'So why bother? When all the evidence is weighed, "maybe the strongest arguments are convenience and tradition," Mr. Lowe offers. "I tend to believe that most people would get along fine without this."Certainly astronauts do. Crew members aboard the International Space Station set their clocks to UTC. It's tough to think about time zones and Daylight Saving Time when your "latitude" varies moment by moment and you see a sunrise and sunset about every 45 minutes.And with various forms of mission control in Japan, the US, Europe, and Russia, one time reference helps keep a cosmic enterprise on the same schedule.(Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0313/Daylight-Saving-Time-Remind-me-again-why-we-spring-forward)

Hundreds Killed in Tsunami after 8.9 Japan Quake

TOKYO (AP) - A ferocious tsunami spawned by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded slammed Japan's eastern coast Friday, killing hundreds of people as it swept away boats, cars and homes while widespread fires burned out of control.Hours later, the tsunami hit Hawaii and warnings blanketed the Pacific, as far away as South America, Canada, Alaska and the entire U.S. West Coast.Police said 200 to 300 bodies were found in the northeastern coastal city of Sendai. Another 88 were confirmed killed and 349 were missing. The death toll was likely to continue climbing given the scale of the disaster.The magnitude 8.9 offshore quake unleashed a 23-foot (7-meter) tsunami and was followed by more than 50 aftershocks for hours, many of them of more than magnitude 6.0.Dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of coastline were shaken by violent tremors that reached as far away as Tokyo, hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the epicenter."The earthquake has caused major damage in broad areas in northern Japan," Prime Minister Naoto Kan said at a news conference.The government ordered thousands of residents near a nuclear power plant in Onahama city to evacuate because the plant's system was unable to cool the reactor. The reactor was not leaking radiation but its core remained hot even after a shutdown. The plant is 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.Trouble was reported at two other nuclear plants as well, but there was no radiation leak at any.Even for a country used to earthquakes, this one was of horrific proportions because of the tsunami that crashed ashore, swallowing everything in its path as it surged several miles (kilometers) inland before retreating. The apocalyptic images of surging water broadcast by Japanese TV networks resembled scenes from a Hollywood disaster movie.Large fishing boats and other sea vessels rode high waves into the cities, slamming against overpasses or scraping under them and snapping power lines along the way. Upturned and partially submerged vehicles were seen bobbing in the water. Ships anchored in ports crashed against each other.The highways to the worst-hit coastal areas were severely damaged and communications, including telephone lines, were snapped. Train services in northeastern Japan and in Tokyo, which normally serve 10 million people a day, were also suspended, leaving untold numbers stranded in stations or roaming the streets. Tokyo's Narita airport was closed indefinitely.Jesse Johnson, a native of the U.S. state of Nevada, who lives in Chiba, north of Tokyo, was eating at a sushi restaurant with his wife when the quake hit."At first it didn't feel unusual, but then it went on and on. So I got myself and my wife under the table," he told The Associated Press. "I've lived in Japan for 10 years and I've never felt anything like this before. The aftershocks keep coming. It's gotten to the point where I don't know whether it's me shaking or an earthquake."Waves of muddy waters flowed over farmland near the city of Sendai, carrying buildings, some on fire, inland as cars attempted to drive away. Sendai airport, north of Tokyo, was inundated with cars, trucks, buses and thick mud deposited over its runways. Fires spread through a section of the city, public broadcaster NHK reported.More than 300 houses were washed away in Ofunato City alone. Television footage showed mangled debris, uprooted trees, upturned cars and shattered timber littering streets.The tsunami roared over embankments, washing anything in its path inland before reversing directions and carrying the cars, homes and other debris out to sea. Flames shot from some of the houses, probably because of burst gas pipes."Our initial assessment indicates that there has already been enormous damage," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said. "We will make maximum relief effort based on that assessment."He said the Defense Ministry was sending troops to the quake-hit region. A utility aircraft and several helicopters were on the way.A large fire erupted at the Cosmo oil refinery in Ichihara city in Chiba prefecture and burned out of control with 100-foot (30 meter) -high flames whipping into the sky.From northeastern Japan's Miyagi prefecture, NHK showed footage of a large ship being swept away and ramming directly into a breakwater in Kesennuma city.NHK said more than 4 million buildings were without power in Tokyo and its suburbs.Also in Miyagi, a fire broke out in a turbine building of a nuclear power plant, but it was later extinguished, said Tohoku Electric Power Co. the company said.A reactor area of a nearby plant was leaking water, the company said. But it was unclear if the leak was caused by tsunami water or something else. There were no reports of radioactive leaks at any of Japan's nuclear plants.Jefferies International Limited, a global investment banking group, said it estimated overall losses to be about $10 billion.The U.S. Geological Survey said the 2:46 p.m. quake was a magnitude 8.9, the biggest earthquake to hit Japan since officials began keeping records in the late 1800s, and one of the biggest ever recorded in the world.The quake struck at a depth of six miles (10 kilometers), about 80 miles (125 kilometers) off the eastern coast, the agency said. The area is 240 miles (380 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.A tsunami warning was extended to a number of Pacific, Southeast Asian and Latin American nations, including Japan, Russia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Chile. In the Philippines, authorities ordered an evacuation of coastal communities, but no unusual waves were reported.Thousands of people fled their homes in Indonesia after officials warned of a tsunami up to 6 feet (2 meters) high. But waves of only 4 inches (10 centimeters) were measured. No big waves came to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, either.The first waves hit Hawaii about 1400 GMT (9 a.m. EST) Friday. A tsunami at least 3 feet (a meter) high were recorded on Oahu and Kauai, and officials warned that the waves would continue and could become larger.In downtown Tokyo, large buildings shook violently and workers poured into the street for safety. TV footage showed a large building on fire and bellowing smoke in the Odaiba district of Tokyo. The tremor bent the upper tip of the iconic Tokyo Tower, a 1,093-foot (333-meter) steel structure inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris.Osamu Akiya, 46, was working in Tokyo at his office in a trading company when the quake hit.It sent bookshelves and computers crashing to the floor, and cracks appeared in the walls."I've been through many earthquakes, but I've never felt anything like this," he said. "I don't know if we'll be able to get home tonight."Footage on NHK from their Sendai office showed employees stumbling around and books and papers crashing from desks. It also showed a glass shelter at a bus stop in Tokyo completely smashed by the quake and a weeping woman nearby being comforted by another woman.Several quakes had hit the same region in recent days, including a 7.3 magnitude one on Wednesday that caused no damage.Hiroshi Sato, a disaster management official in northern Iwate prefecture, said officials were having trouble getting an overall picture of the destruction."We don't even know the extent of damage. Roads were badly damaged and cut off as tsunami washed away debris, cars and many other things," he said.Dozens of fires were reported in northern prefectures of Fukushima, Sendai, Iwate and Ibaraki. Collapsed homes and landslides were also reported in Miyagi.Japan's worst previous quake was in 1923 in Kanto, an 8.3-magnitude temblor that killed 143,000 people, according to USGS. A 7.2-magnitude quake in Kobe city in 1996 killed 6,400 people.Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" - an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 nations. A magnitude-8.8 temblor that shook central Chile last February also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.(Source: http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=14231139)

Tsunami Waves Hit Hawaii, Sweep Across Islands

HONOLULU (AP) - Tsunami waves hit Hawaii in the early morning hours Friday and were sweeping through the island chain after an earthquake in Japan sparked evacuations throughout the Pacific and as far as the U.S. western coast.The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said Kauai was the first island hit early Friday by the tsunami. Water rushed ashore in Honolulu, swamping the beach in Waikiki and surging over the break wall in the world-famous resort but stopping short of the area's high-rise hotels.Waves at least 3 feet high were recorded on Oahu and Kauai, and officials warned that the waves would continue and could become larger.Roadways and beaches were empty as the tsunamis struck the state, which had hours to prepare. Residents in coastal areas of Hawaii were sent to refuge areas at community centers and schools while tourists in Waikiki were moved to higher floors of their high-rise hotels. People waited in long lines stocking up on gas, bottled water, canned food and generators, and officials told residents to stock up on water and fill their cars with gas.The tsunami, spawned by an 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan, slammed the eastern coast of Japan, sweeping away boats, cars, homes and people as widespread fires burned out of control. It raced across the Pacific at 500 mph - as fast as a jetliner - and likely won't change speed until it hits a large area of land, said Kanoa Koyanagi, a geophysicist for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.Waves are predicted to hit the western coast of the United States between 11 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. EST Friday. People near the beach and in low-lying coastal areas of Point Conception in Santa Barbara County were told to move immediately inland to higher ground.While the tsunami is likely to go around smaller islands, the size of Hawaii's islands will amplify the waves, which will crash hardest against harbors and inlets."They're going to be coming in with high currents, they can pick up boulders from the sea floor ... they can pick up cars, they can pick up fuel tanks, those things become battering rams and so it just amplifies the destruction in a big tsunami," said Chip McCreery, director for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.Waves almost 5 feet high hit Midway, a tiny island in the North Pacific about 1,300 miles northwest of Honolulu."We're preparing for the worst and we're praying for the best," said John Cummings III, spokesman for the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management.The Honolulu International Airport remained open but seven or eight jets bound for Hawaii have turned around, including some originating from Japan, the state Department of Transportation said.All harbors are closed and vessels were being ordered to leave the harbor.The warnings issued by the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center cover an area stretching the entire western coast of the United States and Canada from the Mexican border to Chignik Bay in Alaska.In Alaska, a dozen small communities along the Aleutian Island chain were on alert. A wave just over 5 feet hit one area, and there were no reports of damage.In Oregon, sirens blasted and at least one hotel was evacuated in Seaside in the northe.The warning was issued Friday at 3:31 a.m. EST. Sirens were sounded about 30 minutes later in Honolulu alerting people in coastal areas to evacuate. About 70 percent of Hawaii's 1.4 million population resides in Honolulu, and as many as 100,000 tourists are in the city on any given day.Honolulu's Department of Emergency Management has created refuge areas at community centers and schools, and authorities on Kauai island have opened 11 schools to serve as shelters for those who have left tsunami inundation zones.Streets cleared out across Hawaii with usually bustling Waikiki mostly free of any foot traffic, with police ordering every one into the hotels. At the hotels, visitors were evacuated to the third floor and higher."The situation we're confronting right now is unpredictable. We do not know how many waves are going to be coming," said Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle. "We do not know which wave, if any wave, causes the most damage and how long the series of waves can last. As a result of that, it is our responsibility to do those things which are absolutely essential to ensure that human life is saved."A small 4.5-magnitude earthquake struck the Big Island just before 5 a.m. EST, but there were no reports of damages and the quakes weren't likely related, a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey said.U.S. Coast Guard rescue crews were making preparations throughout the Hawaiian Islands to provide post-tsunami support, with cutter and aircraft crews positioning themselves to conduct response and survey missions.Dennis Fujimoto said the mood is calm but concerned on the island of Kauai while people readying for the tsunami.There's long lines at gas stations, and at the Wal-Mart, one of the few places that was open to midnight, people were stocking up on supplies."You got people walking out of there with wagonloads of water," he said.It was the second time in a little over a year that Hawaii and the U.S. West coast faced the threat of a massive tsunami. A magnitude-8.8 earthquake in Chile spawned warnings on Feb. 27, 2010, but the waves were much smaller than predicted and almost no damage was reported.Scientists acknowledged they overstated the threat but defended their actions, saying they took the proper steps and learned the lessons of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami that killed thousands of people who didn't get enough warning.The worst big wave to strike the U.S. was a 1946 tsunami caused by a magnitude of 8.1 earthquake near Unimak Islands, Alaska, that killed 165 people, mostly in Hawaii. In 1960, a magnitude 9.5 earthquake in southern Chile caused a tsunami that killed at least 1,716 people, including 61 people in Hilo.It also destroyed most of that city's downtown. On the U.S. mainland, a 1964 tsunami from a 9.2 magnitude earthquake in Prince William Sound, Alaska, struck Washington State, Oregon and California. It killed 128 people, including 11 in Crescent City, Calif.(Source: http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=14231324)

Tsunami hits Japan After Massive Quake

The most powerful earthquake to hit Japan since records began has hit the country's north-east and triggered a devastating tsunami.Japanese TV showed cars, ships and buildings swept away by a vast wall of water after the 8.9-magnitude quake.A state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear power plant but officials said there were no radiation leaks.At least 60 people have been killed by the quake, which struck about 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo.The region has been rocked by a number of powerful aftershocks.The tremor, measured at 8.9 by the US Geological Survey, hit at 1446 local time (0546 GMT) at a depth of about 24km.A tsunami warning was extended across the Pacific to North and South America.The Red Cross in Geneva warned that the tsunami waves could be higher than some Pacific islands, Reuters news agency said.Coastal areas in the Philippines, Hawaii and other Pacific islands were evacuated ahead of the tsunami's expected arrival.New Zealand later downgraded its alert to a marine threat, meaning strong and unusual currents were expected.Wall of waterStrong waves hit Japan's Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, officials said, damaging dozens of coastal communities.Kyodo news agency said a 10-metre wave (33ft) struck the port of Sendai in Miyagi.Japan's NHK television showed a massive surge of debris-filled water sweeping away buildings, cars and ships and reaching far inland.Motorists could be seen trying to speed away from the wall of water.Farmland around Sendai was submerged and the waves pushed cars across the runway of the city's airport. Fires broke out in the city's centre.A state of emergency was declared at the Fukushima power plant after the cooling system failed in one of its reactors when it shut down automatically because of the earthquake.The local government urged 2,000 nearby residents to evacuate the area as a precaution. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said no radiation leaks at that power plant or any of the other reactors in the quake-hit zone had been detected.The UN's nuclear agency said four nuclear power plants had shut down safely.Police and local officials said at least 40 people had been killed in the earthquake and tsunami. It is believed the death toll could rise significantly.A ship carrying 100 people was swept away, Japanese media reported, quoting police in Miyagi. It is not clear what happened to the ship and its passengers.In Iwate prefecture, also near the epicentre, an official said it was difficult to gauge the extent of the destruction."Roads were badly damaged and cut off as the tsunami washed away debris, cars and many other things," said Hiroshi Sato, a disaster management official in Iwate.The earthquake also triggered a massive blaze at an oil refinery in Ichihara city in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo, engulfing storage tanks.There were reports of about 20 people injured in Tokyo after the roof of a hall collapsed on to a graduation ceremony.Residents and workers in Tokyo rushed out of apartment buildings and office blocks and gathered in parks and open spaces as aftershocks continued to hit.Many people in Tokyo said they had never felt such a powerful earthquake.In central Tokyo, Jeffrey Balanag said he was stuck in his office in the Shiodome Sumitomo building because the elevators had stopped working."There's no panic but we're almost seasick from the constant rolling of the building," he told the BBC.Bullet train services to northern Japan were halted and rapid transit in Tokyo was suspended, stranding many workers in the city centre.Narita airport outside Tokyo was initially closed but later opened for departing flights.About four million homes in and around Tokyo suffered power outages.In a televised address, Mr Kan extended his sympathy to the victims of the disaster and said an emergency response headquarters had been set up.(Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709598)Deadliest Earthquakes27 July 1976, Tangshan, China: est 655,000 killed, 7.526 Dec 2004, Sumatra, Indonesia: 9.1 quake and tsunami kills 227,898 across Pacific region12 Jan 2010, Haiti: 222,570 killed, 7.012 May 2008, Sichuan, China: 87,587 killed, 7.98 Oct 2005, Pakistan: 80,361 killed, 7.631 May 1970 Chimbote, Peru: 70,000 killed, 7.920 June 1990, Manjil, Iran: 40,000 killed, 7.426 Dec 2003, Bam, Iran: 31,000 killed, 6.626 Jan 2001, Gujarat, India: 20,023 killed, 7.717 Aug 1999, Izmit, Turkey: 17,118 killed, 7.630 Sep 1993 Latur, India: 9,748 killed, 6.216 Jan 1995, Kobe, Japan: 5,530 dead, 6.9(Source: USGS)

Huge Quake and Tsunami Hit Japan

TOKYO — A huge earthquake struck Japan on Friday, churning up a devastating tsunami that swept over cities and farmland along the northern part of the country and threatened coastal areas throughout the Pacific.Walls of water whisked away houses and cars in northern Japan, where terrified residents fled the coast. Trains were shut down across central and northern Japan, including Tokyo, and air travel was severely disrupted. A ship carrying more than 100 people was swept away by the tsunami, Kyodo News reported. A fire broke out at the nuclear plant in Onagawa, but Japanese officials said it was extinguished.Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the disaster caused major damage across wide areas. Several hours after the quake, Kyodo News reported 59 deaths, but with rescue efforts just getting under way, the extent of injuries and damage is not yet known. The United States Geological Survey said the earthquake had a magnitude of 8.9, and occurred at about 230 miles northeast of Tokyo and at a revised depth of about 17 miles. The Japanese Meteorological Agency said the quake had a magnitude of 8.8, which would make it among the biggest in a century.The quake occurred at 2:46 p.m. Tokyo time and hit off Honshu, Japan’s most populous island. The quake was so powerful that buildings in central Tokyo, designed to withstand major earthquakes, swayed.“This tremor was unlike any I’ve experienced previously, and I’ve lived here for eight years. It was a sustained rolling that made it impossible to stand, almost like vertigo,” said Matt Alt, an American writer and translator living in Tokyo.President Obama said the United States was ready to help with any assistance. "Michelle and I send our deepest condolences to the people of Japan,” he said in a statement. He said he had instructed federal agencies to be prepared to assist Hawaii and any other areas in the United States affected by the tsunami.By Friday night, tsunami waves of about 30 centimeters, or about 2.5 feet, were reported in Halmahera in Indonesia’s North Maluku Province, and was expected to reach Hawaii in the coming hours.Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist with the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, told CNN that residents in Hawaii and the West Coast should prepare for coastal flooding. He said that there was a “full coastal evacuation” under way in Hawaii.Gauges at Midway Island in the Pacific were registering a wave amplitude of about five feet, he said, but that might increase by the time the waves reached Hawaii. Even a five-foot wave can be devastating, he said, because of the nature of tsunami waves.“There’s a tremendous amount of water” in them, he said. Mr. Fryer said that concerns that the waves might wash over entire low-lying islands in the Pacific were unfounded. “Washing over islands is not going to happen,” he said.Television images showed waves of more than 12 feet roaring inland in Japan. The tsunami drew a line of white fury across the ocean, heading toward the shoreline. Cars and trucks were still moving on highways as the water rushed toward them.The floodwaters, thick with floating debris shoved inland, pushed aside heavy trucks as if they were toys, in some places carrying blazing buildings toward factories, fields, highways, bridges and homes. The spectacle was all the more remarkable for being carried live on television, even as the waves engulfed flat farmland that offered no resistance.The force of the waves washed away cars on coastal roads and crashed into buildings along the shore. Television footage showed a tsunami wave bearing down on the Japanese coastline near the community of Sendai.NHK television transmitted aerial images of columns of flame rising from an oil refinery and flood waters engulfing Sendai airport, where survivors clustered on the roof of the airport building. The runway was partially submerged. The refinery fire sent a plume of thick black smoke from blazing spherical storage tanks. A television commentator called the blaze an “inferno.”The images showed survivors in a home surrounded by water, waving white sheets from the upper floors of buildings. News reports said the earthquake had forced the Tokyo subways to empty while airports were closed and many residents took to the streets, desperately trying to leave the city. for more click here (Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/asia/12japan.html?_r=1)

Dalai Lama Stepping Down as Tibetan Political Leader

DHARAMSALA, India — The exiled Dalai Lama announced on Thursday that he will formally step down as political leader of the Tibetan government in exile."As early as the 1960s, I have repeatedly stressed that Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power," the Dalai Lama said in a prepared speech on the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese control. "Now, we have clearly reached the time to put this into effect."The proposal needs to be formally approved by the Tibetan parliament-in-exile based in India.The Dalai Lama has long seen himself as "semi-retired" from political leadership with an elected prime minister already in place in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala. He remains Tibet's spiritual leader.The Dalai Lama lives in exile in India and advocates "meaningful autonomy" for Tibet within China.Beijing regards him as a dangerous separatist responsible for stirring up unrest in Tibet.Analysts and supporters described the decision of the Dalai Lama, whose office traditionally combines spiritual and temporal roles, as "historic," according to a report in The Guardian newspaper of London.Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet, told the Guardian that "at a perilous moment in the history of Tibet" the Dalai Lama was "expressing his faith in the Tibetan people."The Dalai Lama is revered by his followers as the 14th reincarnation of the Buddha Avalokitesvara who achieved spiritual enlightenment."Since I made my intention clear I have received repeated and earnest requests both from within Tibet and outside, to continue to provide political leadership," the Dalai Lama said. "My desire to devolve authority has nothing to do with a wish to shirk responsibility. It is to benefit Tibetans in the long run."The current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, has progressively distanced himself from a direct political role and expressed a desire to live as a simple monk.The exile parliament is scheduled to begin its next session later this month.Just how much change will come, though, is highly unclear. The Dalai Lama's political role is largely ceremonial — an elected prime minister is the formal leader of the exile government — but the Dalai Lama's status overshadows everyone else in the movement.(Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42001181/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/)

Japan Earthquake Today: Magnitude Of 7.2, Tsunami Alert Issued

Japan Earthquake: A magnitude 7.2 earthquake has hit northern Japan, prompting the country’s meteorological agency to issue a tsunami alert for the northeastern coast. Japan’s meteorological agency said, the quake struck at 11:45 a.m. local time and was centered about 150 kilometers off the northeastern coast about 440 kilometers northeast of Tokyo at a depth of about 8 kilometers.JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp (5020.T: Quote), Japan’s top refiner, said on Wednesday operations at its 145,000 barrels per day Sendai refinery had not been affected by a strong earthquake that hit northern Japan.An emergency and disaster response official in Iwate, Shinobu Nagano said that “We have confirmed that small tsunami have come up on the shores, but we have no reports of damage at this point. We are still trying to determine the impact of the quake.”The focus of the tremor was 10 km (6 miles) below the surface of the earth, off the coast of Aomori prefecture, public broadcaster NHK said. Japan issued a tsunami warning Wednesday after a major 7.2-magnitude quake struck 160 kilometres east off the main Honshu island at 0245 GMT, swaying buildings in the capital Tokyo. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center warned areas along the coast within 60 miles of the earthquake epicenter to be aware of the possibility of a tsunami and take appropriate action, a statement read.(Source: http://www.myvisitingcard.com/2011/japan-earthquake-today-magnitude-of-7-2-tsunami-alert-issued.html)