Japan: tsunami and nuclear crisis

[the_future_modernes]

I, for one, have been thoroughly confused about what to report about the ongoing nuclear crisis and dealing-with-other-aftereffects-of-the-tsumani-and-earthquake in Japan. I have seen lots of articles arguing across the spectrum that Western news articles have been very sensationalistic over the nuclear disaster and have ignored the tsunami victims and that Japanese news articles have been playing it down. So I had adopted a hands-off approach to the whole thing until some confusion cleared.


This is what I've seen so far:

TSUNAMI AND EARTHQUAKE SURVIVORS

Al Jazeera People & Power - Aftermath of a disaster

People & Power looks at Miyako's citizens that survived Japan's devastating earthquake.

and Search for Japan tsunami victims continues: Thousands of troops conduct searches, with less than half those killed in disaster thought to have been found

The search is continuing for victims of the tsunami that struck Japan's north-east coast almost a month ago, while officials said they hoped to stop pumping radioactive water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the sea.

More than 20,000 Japanese troops and 110 from the US conducted land, sea and air searches for the thousands of victims whose bodies have yet to be recovered.

One month since the 11 March disaster, fewer than 13,000 of the estimated 28,000 who died have been found. The likelihood of finding more is fading because many have probably been swept out to sea. A similar search last week recovered only 70 bodies.MORE

Meantime Death toll reaches 13,116 from great quake, tsunami in Japan

TOKYO, April 11 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese National Police Agency said on Monday that the March 11 earthquake and tsunami have left 13,116 people dead and 14,377 others unaccounted for in Japan by 10:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT).

About 151,000 survivors are staying in 2,300 shelters across the country as one month has passed since the quake and tsunami.MORE

NHK adds up the dead and missing and adds the prefectures that have confirmed their dead so far: 26,848 dead or missing in March 11th disaster

The National Police Agency announced on Monday that 13,130 people have so far been confirmed dead, including 8,017 in Miyagi Prefecture, 3,825 in Iwate and 1,226 in Fukushima. This includes deaths reported after a major aftershock on Thursday.

About 83 percent of the recovered bodies have been identified and are being handed over to families.

The number of people missing reported by families, stands at 13,718.

3 municipalities in Miyagi Prefecture hard hit by the tsunami are unable to calculate the number of missing people. Little progress has been made in search operations within the 20-kilometer evacuation zone around the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.MORE

While sharp aftershocks that are pretty much mini-earthquakes in their own right keep killing people: Death toll from Japan aftershock rises to 3

Authorities on Friday blamed three deaths and more than 140 injuries on a fresh earthquake that struck northern Japan a day earlier, shaking up a region already devastated by March's historic temblor.

The dead included an 85-year-old man who collapsed and died while trying to get to a shelter with his family and a 79-year-old man who was reported dead on arrival at the Red Cross hospital in the coastal city of Ishinomaki, doctors there reported.

Further inland, in Yamagata Prefecture, a 63-year-old woman died after a power outage caused by the quake stopped her oxygen, the prefecture's government told CNN.MORE

And another that seems to have happened on Monday, April 11, left this result:Strong aftershock kills 4

Four people were killed and 3 others seriously injured in a strong aftershock that hit northeastern Japan on Monday, just one month after the March 11th disaster.

Police say 4 people were trapped inside a house in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture. They were buried under mudslide triggered by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck at 5:16 PM.

Police and firefighters pulled them out. But a 16-year-old high school girl was confirmed dead and the other 3 were seriously injured.

Rescuers recovered 2 other bodies later from a nearby house also buried by mudslide.

Police say the bodies are believed to be of a 63-year-old man and his 84-year-old mother, who were living togetherMORE

Tsunami survivors move into temporary homes

Japan’s tsunami devastated the coastal town of Rikuzentakata. But, one month on, it is starting to rise again.

Chosen by lottery, a handful of survivors are moving into temporary accommodation and thinking of what lies ahead long-term.

“I don’t know what the future will bring but we are going to stay upbeat,” said one of those taking up residence, Sakai Sasaki, aged 80. “Within two years, we would even like to build a small house. I used to be a carpenter and my grandchildren say they will help me. So I want to build a small house of my own.”MORE

NUCLEAR CRISIS


Radiation from Fukushima 10 pct that of Chernobyl-Japan official

(Reuters) - The emission of radioactive substances from Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant is about 10 percent of the amount that had been detected at Chernobyl, Japan's nuclear safety agency said on Tuesday.

Earlier, Japan raised the severity of its nuclear crisis at the plant to a level 7 from 5, putting it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.MORE

Because 7 is the highest number on the map, and its apparently based on Chernobyl's clusterfuck, raising the situation to 7 elides the situation. There is one hell of a difference between Chernobyl and TEPCO's (the company who runs the plants) disaster, yet a pile of Western journalists are behaving as if they are the same thing. NO Forbes, it's NOT as bad as Chernobyl!!

That being said, the situation is really serious: (via: ontd_political) Japan raises nuke accident severity level to highest 7 from 5

Japan on Tuesday raised the severity level of the accident at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to the maximum 7 on an international scale, up from the current 5 and matching that of the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe.

The previous evaluation of 5 on the International Nuclear Event Scale provisionally set by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a body under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, was at the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in the United States in 1979.

While raising the level for the accident, the agency said, however, that the amount of radioactive materials released into the external environment from the nuke plant is estimated to be about 10 percent of the amount released in the Chernobyl catastrophe.

The decision comes after the release of a preliminary calculation Monday by the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, which said the crippled nuclear plant was releasing up to 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials per hour at one point after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit northeastern Japan on March 11.

Level 7 accidents on the INES correspond to the release into the external environment of radioactive materials equal to more than tens of thousands of terabecquerels of radioactive iodine 131. One terabecquerel equals 1 trillion becquerels.

The agency estimated that up to 370,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials had been released in the air while the commission said it estimated 630,000 terabecquerels, both far exceeding the criteria for level 7MORE

April 11 TEPCO president apologizes, one month later

Masataka Shimizu, the head of Tokyo Electric Power Company, visited the Fukushima government on Monday, exactly one month after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled the company's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Shimizu apologized to people in and outside Fukushima Prefecture, saying his company has added to their physical and mental burdens with the nuclear crisis.

He also said he regrets not meeting local residents first of all to offer an apology. He said he failed to do so because he was overwhelmed by handling the accident from Tokyo.
He also said he was sorry that Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato had refused his request to meet and receive an apology directly.

Turning to reparations, Shimizu said he is well aware that a large number of people have suffered damage over a wide area. He said his company will do its utmost to compensate them based on the government's guidelines, when they are compiled.

Shimizu declined to comment on how he himself would take responsibility for the problems, saying he must now concentrate on overcoming the company's worst-ever crisis.MORE

Here's an article focusing on the people who are on the frontlines trying to stop the leaks and clean up the mess.Heroes and realists found among the brave 'Fukushima 700'

Although lionized as the "Fukushima 50" by the foreign media, there are in fact about 700 workers engaged in the daily struggle with the "invisible enemy" at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

A month has passed in the dangerous and lonely efforts to resolve the crisis at the nuclear plant, and still, there is no end in sight. There are many tales emerging of the unselfishness and bravery of these workers, while others take a more realistic view of why they are risking their lives amid high radiation levels to cool down the plant's overheating fuel rods.

A man in his 40s, who was dispatched to Fukushima No. 1 from a partner of the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), said, "I did not want to go there. But if I reject the request, I will lose my job."

The daily pay is less than 20,000 yen ($236).

"I hear some construction workers were employed at a wage of several tens of thousands of yen per hour. But we are working on a conventional daily wage as our company has had cooperative relationships with TEPCO," the man said.MORE

from ontd_political Embattled TEPCO now facing a harsh public backlash Note the expressions of remorse. Some of that from the US lords of the universe and BP would be nice don'cha think? also: TEPCO and the Japanese gov't: BFFs no more



ECONOMY

Disaster devastates Japan farmland:Tsunami leaves behind toxic chemicals, making huge swathes of arable land unusable.

About 10,000 hectares of arable land was devastated in Sendai prefecture when the tsunami struck Japan last month.

Nearly four weeks after the disaster, some of the rice paddies in the area, known as Japan's "food basket", are still swamped with saltwater.

The tsunami also left behind toxic chemicals, industrial waste, oil, and heavy metals, all harmful to the soil. It could take five to ten years before the land is usable again.

The 80 million tons of debris the tsunami scattered over the landscape also includes material potentially harmful to humans.

Al Jazeera's Marga Ortigas reports from Sendai.MORE

via ontd_political japan tag

Japan's 1st quake reconstruction budget, plus tourism is down lots and lots

The government plans to craft an extra budget of more than 3 trillion yen by mid-April, without relying on bond issuance, to finance measures to help reconstruct Japan following last month's deadly earthquake and tsunami, a blueprint for the budget showed Tuesday.

Around 2.5 trillion yen for the first extra budget for fiscal 2011 will come from funds initially secured to enable the government to maintain the level of the state's contribution to basic pensions at 50 percent, according to the blueprint, a copy of which was obtained by Kyodo News.MORE