Japan Disaster

Nuclear plant clean-up will take decades: Japan

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 23:41:53 +0000

Tokyo: Japan's prime minister said on Saturday the decommissioning of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant would take decades, in the first government announcement of a long-term timeframe for the clean-up.

A monster tsunami crippled cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant following the March 11 earthquake, with three reactors suffering meltdowns, triggering the world's worst nuclear emergency in a generation.

"Many people have been forced to evacuate," Naoto Kan said during a meeting of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.

"It is expected to take three, five, or 10 years for controlling it, and even several decades until the accident settles finally."

The Japan Atomic Energy Commission and Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co have set a provisional goal of starting the removal of melted nuclear fuel at about 2021, public broadcaster NHK said.

The station reported that the authorities, the operator and equipment manufacturers also expect "several decades" to pass before the reactors are ready to be dismantled, citing a long-term roadmap for bringing the plant under control.

Japan has unveiled a short-term emergency plan to stabilise the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which has emitted high levels of radiation after its cooling systems were knocked out.

But the government had not until Saturday presented an estimate of how long it will take before the crisis can be brought to an end. PTI

Toll in Japan earthquake rises to 15,500

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:29:22 +0000

Moscow: The toll from the magnitude-9 earthquake and ensuing tsunami which struck north-east Japan on March 11 has risen to 15,500, police said on Sunday.

Another 7,306 people remain missing after the twin disasters which destroyed infrastructure and triggered a major crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Work is continuing to stabilise the crippled plant which is still leaking radioactive material.

Last month, Japan's Parliament passed a USD 49 billion emergency budget for reconstruction following the March disaster. A small extra budget is due to be submitted to Parliament next month.

In a statement last week, Japan's government said the direct material damage from the disaster stood at USD 210 billion. IANS

Japan suspends waste water nuclear operation

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 13:45:01 +0000

Tokyo: Tokyo Electric Power Co halted an operation to clean highly contaminated waste water at a crippled Japanese nuclear plant due to higher-than-expected radiation levels.

The embattled operator of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi facility said it had suspended the procedure just hours after it started because a new part was needed, adding that it did not know when it would resume.

Part of the system that absorbs radioactive caesium had reached its processing capacity and needed to be replaced far earlier than expected, TEPCO officials said.

The operation started at 8:00 pm Friday (1100 GMT) and was stopped five hours later, said TEPCO, which had earlier expected the part to last for one month.

"We are studying the cause of this," said Junichi Matsumoto, TEPCO official in charge of nuclear operations.

TEPCO officials speculated that highly radioactive mud might have entered the treatment system or that waste water was more radioactive than previously measured.

"We do not have a firm timing as to when we can resume the operation of the water treatment facility," Matsumoto told a press conference.

TEPCO has struggled to cool overheating reactors at the plant, hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and deadly tsunami on March 11.

The wave knocked out reactor cooling systems, sparking meltdowns, explosions and radiation leaks.

The world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 1986 has caused radioactive material to spew into the air, ground and sea and forced the evacuation of 80,000 people in a 20-kilometre (12-mile) radius.

Workers have pumped water into reactor cores and fuel rod pools, leaving more than 100,000 tonnes of contaminated water in basements, drains and ditches, some of which has leaked into the ocean.

The water must be decontaminated before it can be stored or recycled back through the reactors to cool them.

Pumping out the highly radioactive water should then allow workers to start longer-term repair work to the cooling systems.

Quake-tsunami orphans bond with New York terrorism victims

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 07:54:00 +0000

NEW, York — A group of students from Miyagi Prefecture who lost their parents in the March 11 quake and tsunami visited Wednesday the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center. News photo Kindred spirits: Students who lost parents in the March 11 Tohoku catastrophe and young relatives of people killed in the 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. meet Wednesday at a memorial facility in New York. KYODO PHOTO The visit was part of an exchange with young Americans who lost their parents or other loved ones to the attacks or Hurricane Katrina. The group, which includes relatives of people killed in the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, arrived in New York on Tuesday for a five-day visit, during which they will also talk at high schools about the experience of surviving disasters.

The visit was organized by the Tokyo-based nonprofit organization Ashinaga. Named for the American novel "Daddy-Long-Legs," Ashinaga provides financial assistance to orphans and children of single-parent households.

Among the participants is Shoya Kasai, 16, a student at Ishinomaki High School in Miyagi Prefecture who lost one of his parents in the March disaster.

The group plans to raise funds on the streets of the city, together with the American youths, to help Ashinaga build a mental care facility for orphaned children in Sendai.

Untouched magical temple soothes Japanese tsunami survivors

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 03:52:00 +0000

OTSUCHI, JAPAN | On a misty Sunday morning, a cloud of fog seems to hover like a halo over the temple.

For many locals who come to worship here, the temple seems to have magical powers. The March 11 tsunami rushed up a slope to the steps of the temple grounds and then turned back, dragging thousands of people and buildings with it back into the ocean.

After that, an inferno of exploding fuel from canisters, cars and gasoline stations engulfed most of the town, where local officials said they can confirm the whereabouts of only about 6,400 of the town’s 15,000 residents.

Though flames leapt up the mountainside and scorched the trunks of trees encircling the temple grounds, the fire stopped before reaching the main wooden shrine — which has been periodically rebuilt, according to Shinto custom, for more than 1,000 years.

“No firemen came here to put out the flames. God was protecting the temple,” said Takaaki Goto, 74, a city councilor and former geography teacher who survived the tsunami that killed the mayor and 31 other town officials.

“I’ve heard people say that Japan is a country without God. But if you look around, you can see that God protected many things.”

The tsunami and fire gutted his new home across the street, but his most treasured possession — a small shrine containing the ashes and scrolls of his ancestors, who have been living in Otsuchi since the 17th century — survived.

Like Mr. Goto, many who lost their material possessions are turning to spirituality to comfort them in hard times.

On the other side of Otsuchi, the tsunami blew apart a 35-foot-high wall and obliterated the port, fish processing factories and hundreds of homes in the Ando district. The ocean, attacking in a series of three waves, grew to 50 feet in height, chasing about 130 people up a staircase to the hilltop Inari shrine.

One of the most important buildings in the Otsuchi shrine complex holds festival gear, including lanterns, masks and the area’s “mikoshi,” a heavy gilded spirit house that residents carry on their shoulders as they chant and parade through town every autumn. The complex is built around giant trees that people have been preserving for centuries.

The tsunami crashed against a concrete wall fortifying the hillside and mangled a guardrail and fence as it climbed the stairwell. Somehow, it stopped at the foot of a passageway lined with traditional lanterns. The ancient trees and shrines, though less than a mile from the ocean, survived intact, seemingly untouched by perhaps the strongest earthquake and tsunami in Japan’s long history.

“I saw everything,” said Toku Juoudate, 74, whose family has been looking after the shrine for 23 generations.

“The tsunami pushed the boats along with it, and the boats tore the roofing off houses. The tsunami swept people away who were standing on rooftops. My son yelled for everybody to come up higher, and we all survived because God protected the temple and turned back the tsunami,” she said.

In a region prone to earthquakes and tsunamis, wise elders have constructed and preserved Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples and Christian churches on slopes and hilltops, which have stayed above the reach of tsunamis in 1896, 1933, 1960 and on March 11 this year.

Among the few intact buildings, they have become havens for evacuees who lost their homes and other worldly possessions. Mrs. Juoudate said 70 of the people who fled to her temple are still sleeping on the tatami mats of a ceremonial meeting hall.

“People are tired and cranky, and they are losing patience and sometimes arguing, because it is crowded and noisy at night with coughing and snoring. But this is a temple, so people are trying to stay peaceful,” she said.

Not every temple, however, was as fortunate. The tsunami swamped the Koganji temple at sea level at the foot of a mountain in the central business area of town. A demolished car lies in the gutted ruins of the temple’s main hall, where flowers and Buddha statues preside over a wasteland of devastation.

Locals say the temple’s keepers did not always follow strict religious codes. Many evacuees died in the temple instead of running up a hillside path through the cemetery behind it. Tomoko Nakamura, 32, said her parents and grandmother fled from their home across the street to take shelter in the temple. She has not seen them since and continues to search for their bodies, although she knows that they probably were swept out to sea.

Staying at a shelter on higher ground a few miles from the sea, she goes back to the site of her home almost every day. Nothing remains except a traditional “Kura” storehouse made of stone, dating back to before Japan’s modernization in the 19th century.

Though the waves toppled tombstones, she believes her ancestors are resting peacefully in a large grave site of a cemetery, dating back more than 300 years, next to the Koganji temple.

Like many Japanese, she worships her ancestors, especially during the Bon festival in August, when ancestors come home to visit the living. She said Otsuchi always will be her home, even if she and her new husband end up moving elsewhere for work.

In a rainstorm just hours before the fall of darkness in a town without electricity, she stood in the space that used to be her family room, waiting for her parents and grandmother to return to hold her and speak to her.

“I am not scared of coming here,” she said, the lone soul in the charred ruins of the town. “My ancestors are all here to protect me.”