Fukushima Reactor Disaster: Japan to Restart Nuclear Plants, Post #7824

[Catbird]

Something that we never hear about - and it's useful for comparison.

From: http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/nati...00400315F.HTML

"Yellow dust from China contains radioactive substance: institute

2011/03/20 10:47 KST

SEOUL, March 20 (Yonhap) -- Yellow dust blowing over South Korea every year from China is believed to contain radioactive materials presumed to have been leaked from nuclear power plants in the neighboring country, a state think tank said Sunday.

Small amounts of cesium-137, a highly radioactive material, have been detected in the air and surface of South Korea between February and April, when the dust gets most serious, over the past 10 years, the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety said in a report submitted to an opposition lawmaker.

Yellow dust -- fine sand blown from China and Mongolia every spring that sometimes includes toxic chemical smog emitted by Chinese factories -- can cause respiratory disorders.

The atmospheric concentration of cesium-137 reached up to 252 becquerels per cubic meters, especially when the yellow dust continued for up to 11 days, the institute said. The most recent figure was 89.6 becquerels per cubic meters, a relatively high amount, measured for three days in March last year.

On Saturday, South Korea was put under the first yellow dust advisory of the year.

Because the substance mostly is a product of artificial nuclear fission, it usually does not occur in nature to any significant degree until nuclear weapons testing begins.

A cesium concentration of more than 50,000 becquerels per cubic meters is considered harmful to the human body.

However, the lawmaker warned that the cesium level could increase in the future because China is building more nuclear power plants.

"We need to prepare for the potential danger, learning from the massive earthquake in Japan," said Rep. Byun Jae-il of the main opposition Democratic Party (DP).

The magnitude-9.0 earthquake that devastated Japan's northeastern region on March 11 triggered blasts in three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant, raising fears that radiation from the area could affect other parts of the world."

[Cascadians]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110321/..._japan_nuclear
March 21, 2011, by Kevin Krolicki and Ross Kerber

Special Report: Fuel storage, safety issues vexed Japan plant

TOKYO (Reuters)- When the massive tsunami smacked into Fukushima Daiichi, the nuclear power plant was stacked high with more uranium than it was originally designed to hold and had repeatedly missed mandatory safety checks over the past decade.

The Fukushima plant that has spun into partial meltdown and spewed out plumes of radiation had become a growing depot for spent fuel in a way the American engineers who designed the reactors 50 years earlier had never envisioned, according to company documents and outside experts.

At the time of the March 11 earthquake, the reactor buildings at Fukushima held the equivalent of almost six years of the highly radioactive uranium fuel rods produced by the plant, according to a presentation by Tokyo Electric Power Co to a conference organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Along with questions about whether Tokyo Electric officials waited too long to pump sea water into the plants and abandon hope of saving them, the utility and regulators are certain to face scrutiny on the fateful decision to store most of the plant's spent fuel rods inside the reactor buildings rather than invest in other potentially safer storage options.

That debate has direct implications for nuclear policy in the United States about whether changes enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks go far enough to protect potentially vulnerable fuel stored at the nearly two dozen U.S. power plants that have the same design as the Fukushima Daiichi plant, experts say.

In Japan, the crisis has also focused attention on Tokyo Electric's spotty record on safety issues that continued until days before the quake, its cost-cutting drive under current chief executive Masataka Shimizu, and a relationship with Japanese government regulators that critics say remains shot through with conflicts of interest.

The cascade of safety-related failures at the Fukushima plant is already strengthening the hand of reformers who argue that Japan's nuclear power industry will have to see sweeping changes from the top.

"I've long thought that the whole system is crap," said Taro Kono, a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker and a longtime critic of nuclear power who sees the need for a government-directed reorganization of Tokyo Electric.

"We have to go through our whole nuclear strategy after this," Kono said. "Now no one is going to accept nuclear waste in their backyards. You can have an earthquake and have radioactive material under your house. We're going to have a real debate on this."

The latest incidents add to a record of safety sanctions and misses at Tokyo Electric - more commonly known as TEPCO - that date back a decade and continued into the weeks before the quake.

Less than two weeks before Fukushima Daichi was sent into partial meltdown, the utility had told safety regulators it had failed to inspect 33 pieces of equipment at the plant, including a backup power generator, according to a filing.

Nuclear industry analysts say an even more pressing question concerns an area where Japan's safety regulations may have given TEPCO too much room to maneuver as it sought to contain costs: storage of used fuel rods.

RADIATION RISKS

When the quake hit, almost 4,000 uranium fuel assemblies were stored in deep pools of circulating water built into the highest floor of the Fukushima reactor buildings, according to company records. Each assembly stands about 3.5 meters high and even a decade after use emits enough radiation to kill a person standing nearby.

The spent radioactive fuel stored in the reactors represented more than three times the amount of radioactive material normally held in the active cores of the six reactors at the complex, according to Tokyo Electric briefings and its presentation to the IAEA.

The build-up of used fuel rods in the Fukushima reactor buildings has complicated the response to the continuing crisis at the complex and deepened its severity, officials and experts have said.

That has been especially the case at the No. 4 reactor, which was out of service at the time of the quake and had some 548, still-hot fuel assemblies cooling in a pool of water on its upper floor.

That reactor, which erupted into explosive flames twice last week, triggered a warning from U.S. officials last week about higher risks for radiation from the stricken plant than Japanese officials had disclosed.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said the spent fuel was vulnerable because it was protected only by the relatively "flimsy" outer shell of the reactors and reliant on a single, pump-driven cooling system.

"It's a recipe for disaster and that disaster is now unfolding in Japan," Lochbaum said.

The pile-up of used radioactive fuel stored at Fukushima underscores a dilemma that the nuclear power industry has faced in Japan and in the United States for decades: there is no easy answer to the question of where to store radioactive nuclear fuel after it has been used to produce power.

In the United States, industry planners had once assumed that spent fuel rods would be moved to the Yucca Mountain Repository in Nevada. But political opposition in that fast-growing state helped put the plan on hold, meaning spent fuel has largely piled up in on-site cooling ponds.

"We have no plan for the back end of the (nuclear) fuel cycle, and we need one," said Allison Macfarlane, a professor at George Mason University in Virginia, who serves on a U.S. government panel studying the problem.

The situation is similar in Japan. A medium-term storage facility for waste from Fukushima Daiichi being built in the small village of Mutsu in northern Japan is not scheduled to open until 2012. The plan had been for that facility to hold 20 years worth of spent fuel.

A longer-term and controversial plan to build a uranium enrichment and reprocessing plant at nearby Rokkasho has also faced repeated delays and technical difficulties in a project that dates back to the early 1990s.

More than 60 percent of the uranium stored at Fukushima Daiichi made it through the quake and tsunami without being destabilized because it was kept in a separate pool built in 1997 and in a number of metal casks that do not rely on outside power, Japanese nuclear safety officials said.

But the location of the remaining fuel storage pools - on the highest floor of the reactor buildings - exposed the fuel to additional risks because the pools would have swayed more in the quake and could have lost water through sloshing or leaks, experts say.

As workers at the plant scramble to restore power to the plant and test pumps and other safety equipment, the main focus of the safety response has been to keep water in the storage pools by shooting sprays of water from a hastily assembled battalion of high-powered fire trucks.

The water in the pools serves as both a coolant and a barrier to radiation. When the zirconium cladding on the fuel rods is exposed to air, it can erupt into flames.

PUSHING THE LIMITS

Fukushima Daiichi had over time been pushing the limits of the plant's capacity to store uranium fuel on site, according to a Tokyo Electric presentation from November 2010 and now circulating among safety experts and environmental critics.

The Tokyo Electric researcher who prepared that presentation on the safety of spent fuel at the complex, Yumiko Kumano, could not be reached for comment. A spokesman for TEPCO declined to comment on its fuel storage decisions and whether they contributed to the crisis.

"Our focus now is on responding to the situation at Fukushima," he said.
The TEPCO presentation noted that the utility had taken steps to increase storage capacity for spent fuel at the plant complex beyond its original design. Those included "re-racking" the pools in the reactor buildings to increase their capacity and then building a separate large, pool outside and a separate hub of metal casks that do not need to rely on electricity.

But the only significant open space left for storage remained inside the reactor buildings, according to the document. TEPCO had the capacity to more than double the number of fuel assemblies stored in the reactors from 3,998 at the time of the quake to 8,310 assemblies.

"They were headed for dense pack and that would have made the situation even worse," said Frank von Hippel, a Princeton University physicist and former U.S. adviser on nuclear security risks in the Clinton administration.

An official with Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, who asked not to be named because he was not speaking on behalf of regulators in a formal capacity, said officials would have to review safety policies on storing fuel inside reactor buildings.

"This is something that we are going to have to look at after what's happened," he said. ....

[Cascadians]

[ continuation of above article ]

SAFETY MISSES, APOLOGIES, MORE MISSES

When Toru Ishida, a powerful advocate for the Japanese nuclear power industry, decided to leave his government post in 2010 for private industry, he didn't have to change his commute much at all.

Ishida, who had been director general of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the agency overseeing nuclear power, was hired four months after he left his regulatory post by TEPCO.

In a sign of the close ties between the utility and the government agency that serves as its biggest patron, the now-darkened TEPCO headquarters is just a few blocks from METI's drab complex in the Kasumigaski neighborhood that houses much of the government bureaucracy.

The practice of former bureaucrats dropping into high-paid private sector jobs after retirement remains both relatively common and controversial in Japan where it is known as "amakudari," or "descent from heaven."

But the Ishida case attracted so much notice when his hiring by TEPCO became public earlier this year, that then METI Minister Akihiro Ohata felt compelled to concede it could show the need for reform.

"Something should be done to reassure public concern about this," Ohata told reporters in January, while arguing that Ishida had been hired by TEPCO for his "capacity, experience and intelligence" and nothing more.

Critics, including the lawmaker Kono, said the hire illustrates the deep-seated problems in a system that has made METI both nuclear power's biggest backer and home to the safety agency in charge of its regulation.

METI has guided Tokyo Electric's investment in nuclear power and provided an implicit backstop and financing. At the same time, the utility has provided jobs for some senior METI officials like Ishida and a network of sympathetic politicians, Kono said.

"If this is a national policy, then the government has to be responsible entirely," he said. "If this is private enterprise, then we have to think about how to de-cartel this industry."

The Fukushima Daiichi plant is Tokyo Electric's oldest nuclear facility, and it has been the site of a series of high-profile safety lapses going back a decade.

In 2002, TEPCO admitted to safety regulators that it had falsified safety records at the No. 1 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi. In 2003, TEPCO shut down all of its 17 nuclear plants to take responsibility for the false safety scandal and a fuel leak at Fukushima.

In 2007, after a powerful quake hit the area near TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata, the utility was slow to report two radiation leaks and miscalculated the amount of radiation released in a third incident.

Japanese regulators have also come under fire. In 1999, a study commissioned by the U.S. Energy Department determined that workers at Japan's Tokaimura fuel plant had been given insufficient training before they accidentally touched off an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction. Three workers were severely injured in the incident, which forced tens of thousands to evacuate.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency was established in 2001 in part because of that criticism. But critics have questioned whether it has enough distance from the industry it regulates or the resources it needs. The agency's records show that it has about two field inspectors for each of Japan's 54 nuclear plants.

WHERE'S THE CEO

While the band of TEPCO workers risk dangerous doses of radiation as they struggle to prevent a catastrophic meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi, the company's chief executive has all but vanished from the public eye.

Chief executive Masataka Shimizu has not made a public appearance in more than a week. He has yet to visit the crippled nuclear power plant north of Tokyo. And many Japanese, on a knife edge waiting to see if the nuclear power plant and its radiation leaks can be brought under control, are beginning to question how much he is in control of the crisis.

At his last news conference, a week ago, the 66-year-old apologized for the situation, before all but vanishing from public view. The company issued a statement from him on Saturday in which he expressed regret for "causing such trouble."
Shimizu is a consummate company man, joining the place where his father worked at the age of 23. At the country's biggest power supplier, he made a name for himself as a cost-cutter in the procurement side of the business, before becoming company president in June 2008.

Since the crisis, he has largely left it to TEPCO spokespeople in Tokyo to be the public face of the company and answer increasingly aggressive questions, and criticism, from reporters frustrated at the lack of information.

"He's making the low-ranking people do all the hard work," said Satomi Aihara, a 46-year-old Tokyo resident. "I wonder where he's hiding -- it makes me mad."
Even Prime Minister Naoto Kan has been unable to hide his frustration. "What the hell is going on?" he was overheard telling TEPCO executives last week.

TEPCO officials say their boss is busy behind the scenes.

"He's been leading the troops at headquarters," company spokesman Kaoru Yoshida said.

Japanese company chiefs may not be as closely associated with the successes of their companies as they are in the United States or Europe, but they are to any failures.

They are expected to take responsibility for shortcomings, scandals or disasters that happen on their watch, apologizing profusely and often resigning.

Indeed, a former president and chairman of the company both stepped down after the 2002 safety scandal.

HAS U.S. DONE ENOUGH?

While TEPCO, its chief executive and regulators may face questions over the safe storage of spent fuel inside the Fukushima reactors, in the United States experts have urged spent fuel be stored away from reactors because of the risk of a terrorist attack.

A classified report by the U.S. National Academy of Science prepared in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, challenged the position of the U.S. nuclear industry that storing spent fuel in pools was as safe as storing it outside the reactor buildings in heavy casks of lead and steel that can also be reinforced with a massive concrete bunker.

About 23 U.S. reactors share the same General Electric "Mark 1" design as the Fukushima Daiichi reactors, which date back to 1971.

"When the plants were originally designed, it was thought that the spent fuel would remain on the sites only two or three months after they came out of the reactor during a refueling outage and then the fuel would be shipped offsite for reprocessing or disposal," said Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"When those plans changed, we just filled the pools up to capacity without ever rethinking whether we should provide better safety or barriers," he said.

The Japan nuclear crisis has raised concern for U.S. officials because of the areas where safety practices overlap. By contrast, Germany, for example, has relied more heavily on storage of spent fuel in casks that can be hardened against attack or accidents with concrete.

One of problems limiting the wider use of the dry storage units is their upfront costs: each cask costs about $1 million or more. Critics say the costs are roughly comparable with cooling pools over the long run but require initial capital spending that can be a tougher sell to management and shareholders.

Richard Meserve, who was chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1999 to 2003 and oversaw its response to the September 11 attacks, said it is too soon to judge what has happened at Fukushima until more reviews take place. If anything, he said, he was surprised the reactors' spent fuel pools were not fuller, given the ages of the plants.

Meserve noted the steps the NRC took after the September 11 attacks such as requiring the hottest fuel to be spread among various cooling pools, and extra systems to spray water on the spent rods. "We have some safety systems in the U.S. reactors that may not be present at the Japanese reactors," he said.

Junichi Nunomura, a Tokyo-based executive with NAC, a U.S. firm that provides dry storage for nuclear fuel, said Japanese utilities had been slow to move away from storing spent fuel in pools at reactors despite the shift in international opinion away from that option in recent years.

"They've been very cautious, very slow to move," Nunomura said. "That could change."

[Cascadians]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...Vv6_story.html
By David Nakamura, Monday, March 21, 2:00 PM

Japan nuclear plant emergency effort delayed by worker evacuation

TOKYO — Emergency workers lost precious hours Monday in their fight to prevent a full-scale meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after mysterious gray smoke seen emanating from the facility prompted a mass evacuation.

The smoke was spotted just before 4 p.m. coming out of the building that houses the No. 3 reactor, the most badly damaged of the plant’s half-dozen reactors. It tapered off after two hours, but more smoke was seen near reactor No. 2 about 20 minutes later, according to officials from the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO).

Though authorities concluded the smoke was steam and not coming from the overheated spent fuel pool, they acknowledged that radiation spiked one kilometer west of the facility, rising from 494 microsieverts at 5:40 p.m. to 1,932 at 6:30 p.m.

The level dropped to 442 at 8:30 p.m., but officials suspended operations for the day until further notice and the 700 employees who had been working to restore electrical power at the plant were evacuated.

“If we find the levels of radioactivity go down, we’ll go back to work,” Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said at a news conference Monday night at the Prime Minister’s office in Tokyo.

The setback stopped momentum that had been building after workers had sprayed 3,200 tons of water on reactors Nos. 3 and 4 over the weekend to cool the spent fuel rods. Deputy Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama had said Sunday that TEPCO was “very close to getting the situation under control.” Reactors No. 5 and 6 had successfully been placed in cold shutdown and were no longer considered a danger to public health.

Despite the setback, a top U.S. nuclear power official said Monday that the situation appeared to be stabilizing. William Borchardt, executive director of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Operations, cited progress workers had made to connect new power lines to the facility for the first time since it was crippled by the earthquake and tsunami.

“The fact that off-site power is close to being available for use of plant equipment is perhaps the first optimistic sign that things could be turning around,” Borchardt said at an NRC hearing outside Washington on the crisis. “I would say optimistically things appear to be on the verge of stabilizing.”

The muddled emergency effort came as the World Bank estimated that the March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused up to $235 billion in damages, making the natural disaster one of the most expensive in modern history.

The rebuilding effort could take five years, the bank said in its report, and will cost far more than earthquakes in Haiti last year and Kobe, Japan in 1995, as well as Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast in 2005 and the tsunami in South Asia in 2004.

“While it is too early to estimate accurately, the cost of the damage is likely to be greater than the damage caused by the 6.9 magnitude Kobe earthquake,” the World Bank concluded. It placed the Kobe damages at $100 billion and estimated the total cost of the current disaster at between $122 billion and $235 billion.

So far, 8,649 people have died and another 13,262 are missing since the 9.0-magnitude quake struck off the coast near Sendai, Japan’s National Police Agency said. Nearly 350,000 others have been placed in shelters in the region and as far away as Tokyo, and 120,000 members of Japan’s Self Defense Forces are participating in the relief effort.

Martin Faller, head of the East Asia regional delegation of the International Red Cross, said Monday that the most pressing issue for displaced people in the shelters was a lack of heat because fuel remained scarce. While food has become more plentiful, he added, medicine for the large number of elderly people in the region was running low.

“It was really cold in the operation shelters, logistics had broken down, fuel and kerosene were difficult to get,” Faller said in an interview. “Electricity has gone down, so for schools and communities heated by electricity, that’s a big problem.”

Meantime, government authorities said they have banned the sale of raw milk and spinach from several prefectures after they were found to contain excessive levels of radiation. Though officials said the amounts still did not pose a threat to people’s health if consumed, they decided to take action until the radiation levels return to normal.

Government scientists are now examining fish and shellfish, said Yoshifumi Kaji, director of the inspection and safety division of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

The health ministry called on local governments on Monday to advise residents to stop giving babies water in forms such as baby formula if radioactive iodine is found in drinking water at elevated levels, the Kyoto news service reported.

“Babies can easily absorb radioactive iodine in their thyroid glands,’’ the agency quoted a ministry official saying.

Greater amounts of radioactive iodine and cesium were found in rain, dust and particles in the air in some areas over a 24-hour period from Sunday morning due to rainfall, agency reported.

In Vienna, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that the Japanese nuclear crisis exposed serious problems in how governments respond to disasters, AP reported. IAEA chief Yukiya Amano, who visited Japan last week, told an emergency meeting of the agency that governments must release information more quickly.

The World Bank said the economic consequences of the disaster could drive Japan’s bond yields down, but that it would have only “a modest short-term impact” on the broader East Asian region.

“After the Kobe earthquake, Japan’s trade slowed only for a few quarters before recovering,” the bank said. “Within a year, imports had recovered fully and exports had rebounded to 85 percent of pre-quake levels.”

Though estimates vary, Hurricane Katrina caused $81.2 billion in damages in 2005, according to a widely cited study by the National Hurricane Center. Last year, the costs of natural disasters soared to a worldwide total of $109 billion, three times the total in 2009, according to the United Nations. In 2010, the Haiti quake cost $8 billion, floods in Pakistan $9.5 billion and an 8.8-magnitude quake in Chile $30 billion.

The 2004 tsunami caused between $8 billion and $15 billion in damages across India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, according to various estimates.

[Cascadians]

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...ke/heatAll.jpg

From NHK:


http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/defau...__1340857z.jpg



http://www.zerohedge.com/article/the...zone-reactor-3
Thermal Images From Fukushima Indicate Blistering 128 Degrees Celsius Zone In Reactor #3

[It'sJustMe]

More on radioactive material numbers. Now Tepco says nuclear fuel has apparently been damaged. 'Ya think? Fair Use:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/21_22.html

5 radioactive materials detected

Tokyo Electric Power Company says some of the nuclear fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has apparently been damaged, as higher levels of radioactive materials have been detected in the vicinity.

The utility on Monday released the results of a radiation survey carried out at the plant on Saturday.

Officials detected in the air 5 radioactive materials that are generated by nuclear fission.

The level of iodine 131 was 5.9 milibecquerels per cubic centimeter. That's about 6 times the permissible level for workers without protective masks.

The density of the other substances was also higher than usual, but within safety standards.

The utility says the radiation is likely to have come from the damaged reactors, and added that it will check radiation levels daily.

The company also says it has no plan to halt efforts to restore power and pour water into reactors, as these activities pose no risk to workers as long as they wear protective masks.

Monday, March 21, 2011 19:35 +0900 (JST)

[Cascadians]

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/0...n-say-experts/
March 21, 2011, by William Lajeunesse

Japan's Nuclear Disaster Raises Concerns About Contamination of the Global Food Chain

After the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, radiation contaminated 3 million acres of farmland. Up to 9,000 died or will die from thyroid cancer after drinking milk laced with radioactive iodine, according to World Health Organization estimates.

The radiation leaks at Fukushima don’t come close to that of Chernobyl. Still, Japanese officials admit their food chain is also contaminated with harmful levels of radiation, in some cases up to 90 miles from the nuclear site.

"You have to make sure that if there's a question about any aspect of the food supply that that part of the food supply doesn't reach consumers. That's the No. 1 objective," says Brian Wright, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Berkeley.

There are two risks: direct contamination from the radioactive fallout, like water supplies; or indirectly, when consumers eat foods from livestock consuming contaminated grasses or feed.

"I would say it's going to be a long time before you'll be able to eat either animals raised in that area or plants," says University of California Berkeley plant biologist Peggy Lemaux.

Over the weekend, Japan closed 19 dairy farms in the Fukushima prefecture after finding milk with five times the legal limit of radiation. They also halted the spinach harvest in neighboring Ibaraki prefecture after finding radiation seven times higher than safe. The Gunma and Chiba provinces closer to Tokyo also found elevated levels of radiation in kakina and chrysanthemum, both widely consumed local leafy vegetables.

Gamma rays from cesium can break down internal organs, while the intake of radioactive iodine can cause thyroid cancer. Radioactive iodine has a half-life of about 8 days and decays naturally within a matter of weeks. Cesium 137 and strontium can last for decades.

"We won't know until there are measurements taken on terrestrial environments, grasses, plant material and in coastal environments to see how those radioactive materials are working their way into the food chain," says marine biologist David Caron.

Another concern is cattle and fish, especially exports of high grade Kobe beef and sushi. A cash-strapped Japan needs all exports and foreign currency it can get. Yet consumer fears -- legitimate or not -- are expected to damage those exports.

"There will be a demand for certified safe sushi and other fish and that might mean it will increase the cost of those fish for a while," says Wright.

Japan imports most foods but produces 80 percent of their own vegetables and rice. If forced to import more, it will cost consumers more. Experts say the real worry comes in the following days, as more epidemiologists get into the fields to test more crops in more places.

More than 130,000 people lived in the 18-mile 'hot zone' around the plant, but hundreds of thousands more are beginning to move south, away from the reactors.

[It'sJustMe]

Current status of reactors. Fair use:

http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/80013.html

Status of Fukushima nuclear power plants Monday night

TOKYO, March 22, Kyodo

The following is the known status as of Monday night of each of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the four reactors at the Fukushima Daini plant, both in Fukushima Prefecture, which were crippled by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami on March 11.

Fukushima Daiichi plant

-- Reactor No. 1 (Operation suspended after quake)

Partial melting of core, cooling failure, vapor vented, building housing containment of reactor damaged by hydrogen explosion, roof blown off, seawater being pumped in.

-- Reactor No. 2 (Operation suspended after quake)

Damage to reactor containment structure feared, cooling failure, seawater being pumped in, fuel rods fully exposed temporarily, vapor vented, building housing containment of reactor damaged by blast at adjacent reactor No. 3, blast heard near suppression chamber of containment vessel, seawater pumped into pool holding spent-fuel rods on Sunday, access to external power restored Sunday, steam seen rising Monday.

-- Reactor No. 3 (Operation suspended after quake)

Partial melting of core feared, cooling failure, vapor vented, seawater being pumped in, building housing containment of reactor badly damaged by hydrogen explosion, seawater dumped over spent-fuel storage pool by helicopter Thursday, water sprayed at it from ground for five days in a row through Monday, workers forced to evacuate on Monday due to grayish smoke seen billowing from roof.

-- Reactor No. 4 (Under maintenance when quake struck)

Renewed nuclear chain reaction feared at spent-fuel storage pool, fire at building housing containment of reactor Tuesday and Wednesday, only frame remains of reactor building roof, temperature in the pool reached 84 C on March 14, water sprayed at pool again on Monday.

-- Reactor No. 5 (Under maintenance when quake struck)

Some fuel rods left in reactor core, cooling in spent-fuel storage pool resumed Saturday, cold shutdown at reactor on Sunday, access to external power restored, power source switched to external power from emergency power on Monday.

-- Reactor No. 6 (Under maintenance when quake struck)

Some fuel rods left in reactor core, emergency power generator and cooling functions restored Saturday, cold shutdown at reactor on Sunday.

Fukushima Daini plant

-- Reactors No. 1, 2, 3, 4 (Operation suspended after quake)

Cold shutdown, not under emergency status.

==Kyodo

[Red Baron]

BreakingNews: Work to restore power to Fukushima reactors delayed as white plume, smoke rise from No. 2, No. 3 sites - Kyodo http://bit.ly/frFLcP

Today, March 21, 2011, 44 minutes ago

Radiation 1,600 times normal level is detected 12 miles from Fukushima plant, IAEA reports - Kyodo News

about 1 hour ago via breakingnews.com

[Doomer Doug]

drudge report has a link to france24.com which quotes TEPCO as saying they have restored electric power to ALL six nuclear reactors.

considering the safety filing about not checking 33 pieces of equipment the prognosis for getting the pumps working is not good.

[Archetype]

The George Washington and another ship have let Yokosuka ahead of schedule due to the radiation, and the USN may institute a mandatory evac of the base.

[LONEWOLF]

I certainly pray the Japanese Authorities are making a mandatory evacuation of the Fukushima 100km radius *possible* at least......using emergency transport and housing facilities......that aren't already being used by the many, many tsunami victims. Whew.

[Red Baron]

Pentagon weighs pullout from Japan hot zone

U.S. military personnel, families could be ordered to leave areas threatened by radiation after aircraft carrier's departure

Comments By David Martin

(CBS News) THE PENTAGON - The Defense Department was considering Monday night ordering the mandatory departure of all American military personnel and their families from the areas of Japan threatened by radiation, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

The government considered such an order after distributing potassium iodide pills, which defend the body from radioactive iodine, to service members of the USS George Washington and their families left ashore after the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier abruptly left Yokosuka, Japan, Monday morning.

Carrier leaves Japanese port to dodge radiation

The George Washington got underway not to aid in the relief effort but to save itself from radioactive contamination.

The decision to send the George Washington to sea, even though one of its nuclear reactors is down for repairs, came in response to a shift in the wind, which is now blowing increased amounts of radioactivity south over Tokyo toward the American bases at Yokosuka and Atsugi. The winds threaten to dump as much radioactivity in the next 24 hours as in the preceding 10 days.

Navy officers decided they could not allow the George Washington to keep absorbing even low levels of radioactive contamination for the indefinite future. At $4.5 billion, it is one of the Navy's most valuable ships, and the fear is that radiation would be sucked into the ventilation system and leave it contaminated for the rest of its service life.

The situation in Japan has been a fight around the clock to get try and get control of the damaged nuclear power plant north of Tokyo crippled by the earthquake and tsunami that left more than 8,800 people dead.

Workers were forced to evacuate again Monday after smoke was spotted coming from two of the reactors.

There were new concerns Monday night about radiation detected in Japanese crops and in seawater near the plant.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/...20045637.shtml

[LONEWOLF]

Anyone have details of the general mood in Tokyo right now? Where might a city of 20 Million people evacuate to? Sorry for the digression.....

[Hansa44]

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03...diation-fears/


2 U.S. Naval Vessels Pull Out of Japan Due to Radiation Fears

Published March 21, 2011
| NewsCore
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TOKYO -- Two US Navy ships pulled out of the Japanese base at Yokosuka due to fears over rising radiation, Fox News Channel reported Monday.

The USS George Washington and the USS Lassen left the base, which is located south of Tokyo, as a precautionary measure "to ensure a state of readiness in the long term for the defense of Japan," the US Navy said in a statement.

The USS George Washington, which is a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, was removed from the area for regularly scheduled maintenance, a military official told Fox News. The USS Lassen is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.

Last week, the US Navy moved the carrier USS Ronald Reagan away from the Japanese coast on concerns radioactive material was blowing in its direction, but later moved it back.

Earlier, the State Department said it was making potassium iodide available to US government workers and their dependents located in the vicinity of the troubled nuclear plant at Fukushima

[Red Baron]

One or two members said it before and it is worth repeating here.

Watch what the U.S. military does in Japan.

[Red Baron]

BreakingNews: Japan govt spokesman Edano says there are no plan yet to expand evacuation zone near damaged plant - Kyodo

Today, March 21, 2011, 14 minutes ago

[Catbird]

One or two members said it before and it is worth repeating here.

Watch what the U.S. military does in Japan.

I've been watching some forums and sites for military family members in Japan. There has been some mention of NEO activity but nothing official yet. But I suspect that it's coming pretty soon.

-------------

From: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/21...monday/?hpt=T2

"[9:30 p.m. Monday ET, 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in Tokyo] High levels of radioactive substances have been found in seawater near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, its operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday.

Levels of iodine-131 in the seawater were 126.7 times higher than government-set standards, the electric company said on its website. Its monitors detected caesium-134, which has a half-life of about two years, about 24.8 times higher than the government standards. Cesium-137 was found to be 16.5 times higher than the standard.

The electric company detected these levels in seawater 100 meters (328 feet) south of the nuclear power plant Monday afternoon. Radioactive particles disperse in the ocean, and the farther away from the shore a sample is taken, the less concentrated the contamination should be. Because of the huge amount of dilution that happens in the ocean, there's not much chance of deep-water fish being tainted, said Murray McBride, a professor at Cornell University, who studies crop and soil sciences..."

[Hansa44]

BreakingNews: Japan govt spokesman Edano says there are no plan yet to expand evacuation zone near damaged plant - Kyodo

Today, March 21, 2011, 14 minutes ago

Yep! And it's just our ships leaving the nest. For regularly scheduled maintenance.

Oh wait. Haven't China, France, etc. already gone?

[Be Well]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...s-heroics.html


As five are reported dead, will nuclear officials ever reveal the true heroics of Japan's 'Fukushima Fifty'?

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:16 AM on 20th March 2011

They are an anonymous band of lower and mid-level managers who are risking their lives at the very heart of Japan’s nuclear crisis.

But as the stricken reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant appears to stabilise, plant owners are still remaining tight-lipped about the so-called 'Fukushima Fifty' - the heroes fighting to save Japan from nuclear catastrophe.

Fifty essential workers stayed behind to stop a catastrophic meltdown at the plant, as 750 of their colleagues were evacuated earlier this week when the over-heating seemed to be getting out of control.

Five are now believed to have died, 15 are injured and others have said they know the radiation will kill them as they battle to cool overheating reactors and spent fuel rods.

The original 50 brave souls were later joined by 150 colleagues and rotated in teams to limit their exposure to the radiation spewing from over-heating spent fuel rods after a series of explosions at the site. They were today joined by scores more workers.

Japan has rallied behind the workers with relatives telling of heart-breaking messages sent at the height of the crisis.

A woman said her husband continued to work while fully aware he was being bombarded with radiation. He sent her an email saying: 'Please continue to live well, I cannot be home for a while.'

One girl tweeted in a message translated by ABC: 'My dad went to the nuclear plant, I've never seen my mother cry so hard. People at the plant are struggling, sacrificing themselves to protect you. Please dad come back alive.'

One lone woman worker, Michiko Otsuki, this week spoke up for her 'silent' colleagues on a Japanese social networking site to insist that they were 'not running away' as the crisis intensified.

She wrote in a blog translated by The Straits Times: 'People have been flaming [plant operators] Tepco, But the staff of Tepco have refused to flee, and continue to work even at the peril of their own lives. Please stop attacking us.'

'As a worker at Tepco and a member of the Fukushima No. 2 reactor team, I was dealing with the crisis at the scene until yesterday (Monday).'

'In the midst of the tsunami alarm (last Friday), at 3am in the night when we couldn't even see where we going, we carried on working to restore the reactors from where we were, right by the sea, with the realisation that this could be certain death,' she said.

'The machine that cools the reactor is just by the ocean, and it was wrecked by the tsunami. Everyone worked desperately to try and restore it. Fighting fatigue and empty stomachs, we dragged ourselves back to work.'

'There are many who haven't gotten in touch with their family members, but are facing the present situation and working hard.'

The plant operators raised the maximum radiation limit that its workers could be exposed to from 100 milisieverts to 250milisieverts as the crisis intensified.

At its peak radiation was leaking from the stricken plant at 400 milisieverts per hour and the site was abandoned for hours on Wednesday as the radiation became too dangerous. Four hours of exposure to that level of radiation would cause radiation sickness and increase the risk of cancer.

At the height of the disaster some experts speculated that the workers were on a suicide mission.

Photos at link - some closeups of workers there.

[naturallysweet]

It's evil the way that Japan is treating the workers who have stayed behind to try to keep those planets from melting down. They are most likely giving their lives, and they aren't even allowed to call home.

Japan, have you no shame!

[Red Baron]

Anyone have details of the general mood in Tokyo right now? Where might a city of 20 Million people evacuate to? Sorry for the digression.....

Never thought it through until now but here goes,

There is -no- way to evacuate Tokyo. Where can one put 20 million displaced people?

As far as mood, watch what people do, not what they say. Are people starting to wear facemasks? Are a significant amount of people not showing up for work? Hoarding, shortages or gasp, even violence or theft?

Short of a truly worst case uranium fire at Fukashima and some really bad luck with the weather I don't see radiation levels reaching an unhealthy level in Tokyo proper.

It will be a very delicate balance keeping morale in Tokyo during this crisis however.

The politics of this whole thing will mean major problems for the government and the nuclear power utilities in Japan.

[Be Well]

It's evil the way that Japan is treating the workers who have stayed behind to try to keep those planets from melting down. They are most likely giving their lives, and they aren't even allowed to call home.

Japan, have you no shame!

Chernobyl was worse (of course we don't know how bad things will get in Japan). In Ukraine, people were pressed into service and many, many died.

[Heliobas Disciple]

I have also slowed down my monitoring of the situation, but do check this thread and the general news at least once or twice a day. It was my belief from the beginning of this whole reactor mess that they would never get this under control, but as the days go on I'm feeling a little bit more optimistic that maybe they will. Could be I'm just doom-fatigued out on this, or could be that I'm buying the news they are putting out. . In the meantime though - more doom.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03...-near-boiling/
(fair use applies) EXCERPT

Official: Japan Nuke Plant Pool at or Near Boiling
Published March 22, 2011

TOKYO -- A Japanese nuclear safety official says a pool for storing spent fuel at the crippled nuclear plant is heating up, with temperatures around the boiling point.

(snip)

[Heliobas Disciple]

Some more late night articles:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12815906
(fair use applies)

Japan's food contamination problem 'serious', says WHO

The World Health Organisation says the food contamination in Japan is 'more serious' than first expected.

(snip)

AND

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/...-nuclear-plant
(fair use applies) EXCERPT

'Little progress' made at stricken nuclear plant
Updated 20 minutes ago

Officials in Japan say little progress has been made in re-starting the cooling system at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

(snip)

The BBC reports that on Monday, authorities were more upbeat about the operation to stabilise the power plant, but government ministers now say the situation is extremely tough and it is difficult to say that things are showing progress.

(snip)

Abnormally high levels of radioactive material have been detected in seawater near the Fukushima plant.

Radioactive iodine levels are more than 100 times higher than government standards, while radioactive caesium are 25 times the official limit.

The World Health Organisation says radiation detected in food in Japan, such as vegetables and milk, is worse than previously thought.

The most toxic has been radioactive iodine and indications of radiocaesium.

(snip)

China and South Korea say they will toughen checks on Japanese food for radioactivity.

The WHO says it has no evidence of contaminated food spreading internationally.

[Dennis Olson]

Pool Boils at Japan Nuke Plant as Evacuees Weary

Published March 22, 2011 | Associated Press

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FUKUSHIMA, Japan -- Weariness and anxiety percolated Tuesday among people who left their homes near Japan's radiation-shedding nuclear complex as workers tried urgently to cool an overheated storage pool and methodically to reconnect critical cooling systems.

In another day of progress and setbacks, a pool holding spent nuclear fuel heated up to around the boiling point, a nuclear safety official said. With water bubbling away, there is a risk that more radioactive steam could spew out. "We cannot leave this alone and we must take care of it as quickly as possible," said the official, Hidehiko Nishiyama.

It wasn't clear if crews had to retreat to stop work hooking up electrical systems and checking machinery to power up cooling systems.

People at Fukushima city's main evacuation center waited in long lines for bowls of hot noodle soup. A truck delivered toilet paper and blankets. Many among the 1,400 people living in the crowded gymnasium came from communities near the nuclear plant and worry about radiation and weary of the daily routine of the displaced.

"It was an act of God," said Yoshihiro Amano, a grocery store owner whose house is 4 miles (6 kilometers) from the reactors. "It won't help anything to get angry. But we are worried. We don't know if it will takes days, months or decades to go home. Maybe never. We are just starting to be able to think ahead to that."

Public sentiment is such that Fukushima's governor rejected a meeting offered by the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, the utility that runs the nuclear plant.

"What is most important is for TEPCO to end the crisis with maximum effort. So I rejected the offer," Gov. Yuhei Sato said on national broadcaster NHK. "Considering the anxiety, anger and exasperation being felt by people in Fukushima, there is just no way for me to accept their apology."

The nuclear crisis has added a broader dimension to the disaster unleashed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that pulverized the northeast coast, leaving more than 9,000 dead by official count and twice that in police estimates.

Three of Japan's marquee companies -- Sony Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. -- announced halts to production at plants in Japan. The reason is a shortage of parts -- a result of so many ruined factories in the disaster area.

Fears about radiation are reaching well beyond those living near Fukushima and the 430,000 displaced by the earthquake and tsunami to encompass large segments of Japan. Traces of radiation are being found in vegetables and raw milk from a swath of farmland, forcing a government ban on sales from those areas.

Seawater near the Fukushima plant is showing elevated levels of radioactive iodine and cesium, prompting the government to test seafood.

China, Japan's largest trading partner, has ordered testing of imports of Japanese food. The World Health Organization has urged Japan to adopt stricter measures and reassure the public.

Government officials and health experts say the doses are low and not a threat to human health unless the tainted products are consumed in abnormally excessive quantities. But the government measures to release data on radiation amounts, halt sales of some foods and test others are feeding public worries that the situation may grow more dire.

"We acknowledge this situation has caused anxiety among the general public but even if the accident hadn't happened we would be monitoring and taking action if the government's very conservative standards are exceeded," the government's spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said at a briefing.

In the first five days after the disasters struck, the Fukushima complex saw explosions and fires in four of the plant's six reactors, and the leaking of radioactive steam into the air. Since then, progress has been made cooling the active reactors and replenishing spent fuel pool, though setbacks have occurred.

The bubbling in Unit 2's storage pool is worrisome. If unabated, the water could boil away, exposing fuel rods that would throw up more radiation. At extremely high temperatures, the zirconium cladding around the rods could melt and explode.

Nishiyama, the agency official, said the rods had been partly exposed; an agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo believed the rods remained covered.

An official of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in Washington that Units 1, 2 and 3 have all seen damage to their reactor cores, but that containment is intact. The commission's executive director, Bill Borchardt, said that "things appear to be on the verge of stabilizing."

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said that radiation seeping into the environment is a concern and needs to be monitored. "We are still in an accident that is still in a very serious situation," said Graham Andrew, senior adviser to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano.

IAEA monitoring stations have detected radiation 1,600 times higher than normal levels -- but in an area about 12 miles from the power station, the limit of the evacuation area declared by the government last week.

Radiation at that level, while not high for a single burst, could harm health if sustained. If projected to last three days, radiation at those levels would U.S. authorities would order an evacuation as a precaution.

The levels drop dramatically the further you go from the nuclear complex. In Tokyo, about 140 miles south of the plant, levels in recent days have been higher than normal for the city but still only a third of the global average for naturally occurring background radiation.
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URL

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03...-near-boiling/

[Border guard]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...uakes_all.html

6.0+ aftershocks in Japan. - BG


MAP 5.5 2011/03/22 11:21:39 39.789 143.139 24.8 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 4.8 2011/03/22 10:56:48 37.269 141.874 44.0 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 5.0 2011/03/22 10:19:01 40.344 142.531 20.5 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 6.6 2011/03/22 09:44:30 39.863 143.436 15.5 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 3.2 2011/03/22 09:43:58 18.463 -65.693 44.0 PUERTO RICO REGION
MAP 6.4 2011/03/22 09:19:06 37.334 141.861 27.0 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 4.7 2011/03/22 08:38:37 -3.778 101.961 96.1 SOUTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
MAP 4.7 2011/03/22 08:33:10 36.913 140.997 53.7 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 4.7 2011/03/22 07:41:28 36.014 141.415 41.1 NEAR THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
MAP 6.6 2011/03/22 07:18:48 37.249 143.956 26.5 OFF THE EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN

[Cascadians]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,7456230.story
March 22, 2011, 5:00 a.m., by Don Lee, Victoria Kim and John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times

Repair crews return to nuclear plant as Japan's disaster toll rises

The workers who had been forced to evacuate because of smoke from two reactors resume efforts to restore cooling systems. Officials say 10,000 are confirmed dead from the quake and tsunami, with more than 13,000 still missing.

Reporting from Tokyo, Los Angeles and Senmaya,— Workers resumed trying to restore cooling systems Tuesday at the damaged Japanese nuclear power plant in Fukushima, a day after smoke from two reactors forced an evacuation of repair crews. But as the work began, the death toll from the quake and tsunami disaster marched inexorably upward.

Nearly 10,000 people are now confirmed dead, with more than 13,000 missing as a result of the March 11 tragedy, Japan's national police agency reported late Tuesday. Bodies are still being recovered daily, though the grim realization is setting in that many victims have simply vanished without a trace.

As through much of the long struggle to cool damaged, overheated reactors in the ruined nuclear complex, new worries came to the fore after work resumed Tuesday. An official from Japan's nuclear safety agency, Hidehiko Nishiyama, said temperatures in a spent-fuel pool at the No. 2 reactor were believed to be around the boiling point -- raising the risk of the fuel being exposed.

Earlier, Japanese Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa had said white smoke from the plant's No. 2 reactor could have been steam and a darker plume from the No. 3 reactor was debris that had been set on fire by the building's rising temperature, the Kyodo news agency reported.

By midday, firefighters and Japanese Self-Defense Forces deemed the situation safe enough to return and continue spraying the building housing the No. 3 reactor, the only one of the plant's six that has yet to be connected power cables, Kyodo said.

Some Japanese scientists said the setbacks didn't appear to signal a deteriorating situation at Fukushima, where workers had been making progress in the painstaking task of containing the nuclear crisis.

Still, the sudden black and gray plume, and a temporary increase in radiation levels around the plant on Monday, underscored the still precarious scene at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, where the March 11 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami knocked out the plant's outside power and emergency cooling systems, causing radiation leaks from multiple sources.

The interruption delayed by a day efforts to restore power to the cooling systems at the plant. The smoke also caused fire officials to halt the spraying of water onto the reactors.

The snag came on a day when the executive director of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Bill Borchardt, said that the agency's staff in Japan reported that the three reactors probably had suffered core damage but did not appear to be leaking significant amounts of radiation. .... .... .... .... ... ....

[Cascadians]

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories...effort-110322/
Tue. Mar. 22 2011 7:50 AM ET

Fukushima nuclear storage pool near boiling point

Workers at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant are working urgently to cool an overheated storage pool while a second team works to try to reconnect electricity to critical cooling systems.

In a reminder that the battle to stop the spread of radiation at the plant is still not over, officials said Tuesday that a pool holding spent nuclear fuel had heated up to around the boiling point.

Even spent fuel rods can generate intense heat and dangerous radiation. The rods need to be stored in a water-filled pool for a year or more to allow them to cool, and the heat from the pools needs to be constantly removed.

The worry at the overheating Fukushima fuel pool is that if it's not cooled down soon, radioactive steam will be emitted. And if the situation worsens, the water within could boil away, exposing the fuel rods, which would throw up much more radiation.

"We cannot leave this alone and we must take care of it as quickly as possible," the official, Hidehiko Nishiyama, told the Associated Press.

Over at the reactors, Kyodo news agency said steam appeared to have risen from reactor No. 2 and white haze was detected above reactor No. 3.

Work has to be interrupted yet again after the steam and smoke was detected and radiation levels spiked briefly. Engineers were told to leave the plant; work resumed again shortly after dawn.

Meanwhile, technicians have now attached power cables to all six reactors. The priority now is patching up the No. 2 reactor so that the electricity can be turned on.

Workers have already been able to restore electricity to reactor No. 5, whose cooling pumps are now working again.

Toshiba said it had sent 100 engineers to help. Australia has also sent sending a remotely operated water canon system to help spray water on the plant.

Despite these latest setbacks, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington said Monday that the crisis appeared close to stabilizing.

An NRC official said Units 1, 2 and 3 have all seen damage to their reactor cores, but that containment is intact.

But the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said radiation seeping into the environment is still a concern and needs to be monitored.

"We are still in an accident that is still in a very serious situation," said Graham Andrew, senior adviser to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano.

IAEA monitoring stations have detected radiation 1,600 times higher than normal levels -- but only within the 20 kilometres radius of the evacuation area declared by the government last week.

Radiation levels drop dramatically the further you go from the nuclear complex. In Tokyo, about 220 kilometres south of the plant, levels in recent days have been higher than normal for the city but still only a third of the global average for naturally occurring background radiation.

Radiation at that level, while not high for a single burst, could harm health if sustained.

Damage from the earthquake and tsunami is now estimated at US$250 billion -- making it the world's costliest natural disaster.

[Cascadians]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ew-crisis.html
12:27 PM on 22nd March 2011

Fresh fears for Fukushima: Stricken nuclear plant heats up AGAIN as Japanese say it
could take five years to rebuild country

Radiation found in sea water as fight for nuclear plant continues

Official death toll tops 9,000 with 12,000 people still missing

Hundreds of desperate families bury their dead in mass graves

Japanese fear it could take five years to rebuild shattered cities

Workers desperately battling to contain a meltdown at Japan's crippled nuclear plant today faced a fresh crisis as a pool for storing spent fuel began heating up.

Temperatures in the facility at the Fukushima site have already reached boiling point and staff believe this is responsible for the clouds of steam drifting from reactor two yesterday.

The hot storage pool is another complication in bringing the plant under control and ending the nuclear crisis which followed the massive earthquake and tsunami which devastated the north-east coast on March 11.

Workers now believe the steam seen rising from the Fukushima plant yesterday was released after a pool storing spent fuel heated up

If water in the pool bubbles away and exposes fuel rods, more radiation would be released.

Away from the plant, mounting evidence of radiation in vegetables, water and milk stirred concerns among Japanese and abroad despite officials' assurances that the levels were not dangerous.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said radiation has been found in the Pacific Ocean close by which is not surprising given the reactors have been hosed with sea water.

Radioactive iodine in the sea samples was 126.7 times the allowed limit, while caesium was 24.8 times over. But that still posed no immediate danger, said TEPCO.

'It would have to be drunk for a whole year in order to accumulate to one millisievert,' a TEPCO official said, referring to the standard radiation measurement unit.

People are generally exposed to about 1 to 10 millisieverts each year from background radiation caused by substances in the air and soil.

Japan has urged some residents near the plant to stop drinking tap water after high levels of radioactive iodine were detected.

It has also stopped shipments of milk, spinach and a vegetable called kakina from the area. The plant lies 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Experts say readings are much lower than around Chernobyl after the 1986 accident in Ukraine.

Japan is a net importer of food but it also exports fruit, vegetables, dairy products and seafood, with its biggest markets in Hong Kong, China and the U.S.

China said it was monitoring food imports from Japan and South Korea is expanding inspection of Japanese food. Australia's food regulator said the risk was negligible and no extra restrictions on Japanese food were in place.

Authorities in Taiwan were extending monitoring while Thai food authorities were making random checks.

Despite the concern about elevated radiation readings, Japan said there was no need to extend a 12-mile evacuation zone around the plant.

More than 170,000 people have been moved out of the zone since the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and 30ft tsunami smashed into the nuclear complex.

'At the moment, there is no need to expand the evacuation area,' Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a briefing.

Latest available readings from an area six miles outside the evacuation zone show a level of 110 microsieverts per hour in the air, well below a level that would cause health risks but much higher than normal background levels.

As the battle for Fukushima continued, Japan was still struggling to come to terms with the triple crisis which has devastated the country.

Officials believe it could take as much as five years to rebuild the shattered towns and cities swept away by the tsunami.

Police said the official death toll from the earthquake and tsunami now stands at 9,079. More than 12,600 have been reported missing. The final figure killed by the disaster is likely to top 25,000.

However, a police spokesman from one of the of the hardest-hit prefectures, Miyagi, estimates that the deaths will top 15,000 in that region alone.

Hundreds of families have been forced to bury their relatives in hastily-constructed mass graves. Some fear they will never discover what happened to their loved ones.
.... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... .... ....

[Cascadians]

http://twitter.com/martyn_williams

Fukushima-1 will probably never come back online. Edano hinted so yesterday.

[Cascadians]

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2...uclear-effort/
CH 22, 2011, 4:32 PM HKT

China Concrete Pumper Gets Into Nuclear Effort

To cool quake-ravaged systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, Japanese authorities have funneled water in from the sea, dumped it from helicopters, shot it from fire trucks and of late had success reestablishing pumps.

Now, they are reportedly bringing in a new weapon: A powerful Chinese-made truck designed to shoot wet concrete several stories into the air.

Changsha-based Sany Group Co. says its 62-meter truck-mounted concrete pump, used to build some of the world’s tallest skyscrapers, is on its way to Fukushima at the request of Tokyo Electric Co., or Tepco. The plan, according a statement posted on Sany’s website, is to use the machine to pump water toward Tepco’s reactor No. 4.

Already well known in the construction industry, Sany is making a name for itself in disaster relief as well – partly with its own stream of press releases.

A huge crane Sany built was instrumental in the rescue of Chilean miners last year. The Chinese company also claims a role in rescuing Colombians trapped in mud). On the domestic front, the company sent a team to the site of Sichuan’s 2008 earthquake to help clear roads and extract survivors from the rubble.

Sany says the truck sent to Japan, originally ordered by a Saudi client and worth roughly $1 million, is being sent free of charge to the nuclear plant and was requested personally by Tepco President Masataka Shimizu. “Since the break out of Japan’s nuclear crises in Fukushima nuclear power station, the determination and the strong will of Japanese people have touched the whole world,” the Sany statement said.

Sany isn’t the only construction equipment maker contributing to the radiation containment effort. Concrete pumps from Putzmeister Holding GmbH are also working at Fukushima, according to the German company’s website. (Putzmeister reportedly has experience from Chernobyl and pumped concrete for the world’s tallest building). Meanwhile, U.S. engineering giant Bechtel is reportedly flying over a remote-controlled robotic water sprayer.

Sany’s participation, spotlighted by the Xinhua news agency Tuesday, is the latest evidence that the quake may be improving China’s famously prickly relations with its neighbor.

In other shows of empathy, Shanghai private equity firm Fosun Group last week pledged to donate 5 million yuan, or roughly $760,000, through the Chinese Red Cross on behalf of 50 nuclear plant relief workers while one of China’s highest profile philanthropists personally traveled to Japan to deliver cash and relief supplies.

For many outside of China, Sany might be best known for the role its founder played in defending the Chinese construction equipment industry as a national treasure in 2006 – and helping reorder how foreign private equity firms operated in China. Sany billionaire Chairman Xiang Wenbo emerged as the pied piper of a nationalistic movement that effectively blocked Washington-based private equity firm Carlyle Group’s bid to pay $375 million for control of Xugong Group Construction Machinery Co. “Selling anything is fine, but selling out the country is wrong!” Mr. Xiang declared in one of his blog postings at the time.

Any visit to Sany’s spotless factory near Changsha’s airport will reveal widespread corporate pride in pumping up the construction industry with equipment like the machine being sent to Japan.

Sany specializes in a construction process akin to weight lifting: Its machines overpower gravity to push dense material high in the sky. With high-reaching tubes, or booms, that are powered by massive pumps, Sany equipment can direct wet concrete upwards during the construction of skyscrapers. Its crawler cranes (made famous in the Chile mine rescue) have also been used in the construction of Chinese nuclear power plants.

The company claims participation in some of the world’s tallest construction projects, and according to Guinness World Records it boasts the longest boom for a truck-mounted concrete pump: 71.535 meters, or just over 234 feet.

If emergencies become a bigger part of Sany’s business, perhaps it should consider putting sirens on its trucks.

[Cascadians]

[Dennis Olson]

Power Lines Hooked Up to All Six Reactors at Crippled Japan Nuclear Plant

Published March 22, 2011 | FoxNews.com

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The operator of Japan's leaking nuclear plant says power lines have been hooked up to all six reactor units, though more work is needed before electricity can run through them.

The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, announced the hookup Tuesday but cautioned that workers must check pumps, motors and other equipment before the electricity is turned on.

Reconnecting the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex to the electrical grid is a significant step in getting control of the overheated reactors and storage pools for spent fuels. But it is likely to be days if not longer before the cooling systems can be powered up, since damaged equipment needs to be replaced and any volatile gas must be vented to avoid an explosion.

Nuclear plant workers resumed work Tuesday morning to restore power and cooling functions at the crippled reactors after smoke was detected at the Unit 2 and 3 reactors, Kyodo News Agency reports.

The operator of the plant told the Kyodo News Agency that firefighters and the Tokyo Electric Power Co. sprayed water onto the spent nuclear fuel rods at the Unit 3 and 4 reactors.

Work resumed after a pool holding spent nuclear fuel heated up to around the boiling point, a nuclear safety official said. With water bubbling away, there is a risk that more radioactive steam could spew out. "We cannot leave this alone and we must take care of it as quickly as possible," said the official, Hidehiko Nishiyama.

People at Fukushima city's main evacuation center waited in long lines for bowls of hot noodle soup. A truck delivered toilet paper and blankets. Many among the 1,400 people living in the crowded gymnasium came from communities near the nuclear plant and worry about radiation and weary of the daily routine of the displaced.

"It was an act of God," said Yoshihiro Amano, a grocery store owner whose house is 4 miles from the reactors. "It won't help anything to get angry. But we are worried. We don't know if it will takes days, months or decades to go home. Maybe never. We are just starting to be able to think ahead to that."

Public sentiment is such that Fukushima's governor rejected a meeting offered by the president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, the utility that runs the nuclear plant.

"What is most important is for TEPCO to end the crisis with maximum effort. So I rejected the offer," Gov. Yuhei Sato said on national broadcaster NHK. "Considering the anxiety, anger and exasperation being felt by people in Fukushima, there is just no way for me to accept their apology."

The nuclear crisis has added a broader dimension to the disaster unleashed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that pulverized the northeast coast, leaving more than 9,000 dead by official count and twice that in police estimates.

Three of Japan's marquee companies -- Sony Corp., Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. -- announced halts to production at plants in Japan. The reason is a shortage of parts -- a result of so many ruined factories in the disaster area.

Fears about radiation are reaching well beyond those living near Fukushima and the 430,000 displaced by the earthquake and tsunami to encompass large segments of Japan. Traces of radiation are being found in vegetables and raw milk from a swath of farmland, forcing a government ban on sales from those areas.

Seawater near the Fukushima plant is showing elevated levels of radioactive iodine and cesium, prompting the government to test seafood.

China, Japan's largest trading partner, has ordered testing of imports of Japanese food. The World Health Organization has urged Japan to adopt stricter measures and reassure the public.

Government officials and health experts say the doses are low and not a threat to human health unless the tainted products are consumed in abnormally excessive quantities. But the government measures to release data on radiation amounts, halt sales of some foods and test others are feeding public worries that the situation may grow more dire.

"We acknowledge this situation has caused anxiety among the general public but even if the accident hadn't happened we would be monitoring and taking action if the government's very conservative standards are exceeded," the government's spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, said at a briefing.

In the first five days after the disasters struck, the Fukushima complex saw explosions and fires in four of the plant's six reactors, and the leaking of radioactive steam into the air. Since then, progress has been made cooling the active reactors and replenishing spent fuel pool, though setbacks have occurred.

The bubbling in Unit 2's storage pool is worrisome. If unabated, the water could boil away, exposing fuel rods that would throw up more radiation. At extremely high temperatures, the zirconium cladding around the rods could melt and explode.

Nishiyama, the agency official, said the rods had been partly exposed; an agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo believed the rods remained covered.

An official of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in Washington that Units 1, 2 and 3 have all seen damage to their reactor cores, but that containment is intact. The commission's executive director, Bill Borchardt, said that "things appear to be on the verge of stabilizing."

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said that radiation seeping into the environment is a concern and needs to be monitored. "We are still in an accident that is still in a very serious situation," said Graham Andrew, senior adviser to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano.

IAEA monitoring stations have detected radiation 1,600 times higher than normal levels -- but in an area about 12 miles from the power station, the limit of the evacuation area declared by the government last week.

Radiation at that level, while not high for a single burst, could harm health if sustained. If projected to last three days, radiation at those levels would U.S. authorities would order an evacuation as a precaution.

The levels drop dramatically the further you go from the nuclear complex. In Tokyo, about 140 miles south of the plant, levels in recent days have been higher than normal for the city but still only a third of the global average for naturally occurring background radiation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/03...-near-boiling/

[mslucky]

Japan battles crippled nuclear plant, radiation fears grow

By Risa Maeda and Kazunori Takada

TOKYO | Tue Mar 22, 2011 12:03pm EDT

(Reuters) - Rising temperatures around the core of one of the reactors at Japan's quake-crippled nuclear plant sparked new concern on Tuesday and more water was needed to cool it down, the plant's operator said.

...Technicians working inside an evacuation zone around the stricken plant on Japan's northeast Pacific coast, 250 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, have attached power cables to all six reactors and started a pump at one to cool overheating nuclear fuel rods.

But smoke and steam were later seen rising from two of the most threatening reactors, No.2 and No.3, threatening to dash hopes of progress in bringing them under control....

...Hidehiko Nishiyama, the deputy-director general of Japan's nuclear safety agency, later said the smoke at reactor No.3 had stopped and there was only a small amount at No.2.

He gave no more details, but a TEPCO executive vice president, Sakae Muto, said the core of reactor No.1 was now a worry with its temperature at 380-390 Celsius (715-735 Fahrenheit).

"We need to strive to bring that down a bit," Muto told a news conference, adding that the reactor was built to run at a temperature of 302 C (575 F)...

...Asked if the situation at the problem reactors was getting worse, he said: "We need more time. It's too early to say that they are sufficiently stable."

Reuters earlier reported that the Fukushima plant was storing more uranium than it was originally designed to hold, and that it had repeatedly missed mandatory safety checks over the past decade, according to company documents and outside experts...

"Overall there is progress compared to a few days ago when everything seemed hopeless. But we still judge the situation to be critical," said Per Bystedt, an analyst at the Swedish Radiation Protection Authority.

"The positive thing is that electric power is more or less connected to all the plants."

...Miniscule numbers of radioactive particles believed to have come from the crippled nuclear power plant have been detected as far away as Iceland, diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.

They stressed the tiny traces, measured by a network of international monitoring stations as they spread eastwards from Japan across the Pacific, North America, the Atlantic and to Europe, were far too low to cause any harm to humans.

"It's only a matter of days before it disperses in the entire northern hemisphere," Andreas Stohl, a senior scientist at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, said. "Over Europe there would be no concern about human health."...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72A0SS20110322

[mslucky]

IAEA concerned, lacking info on Japan nuclear plant

VIENNA | Tue Mar 22, 2011 12:03pm EDT

(Reuters) - The U.N. atomic agency said on Tuesday it was concerned that it had not received some information from Japan about its stricken nuclear plant, saying the overall situation remained "very serious."

"We have not received validated information for some time related to the containment integrity of unit 1. So we are concerned that we do not know its exact status," Graham Andrew, a senior official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told a news conference.

The IAEA also lacks data on the temperatures of the spent fuel pools of reactors 1, 3 and 4, he said, though Japan was supplying other updates.

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl and Sylvia Westall, editing by Tim Pearce)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...72L4FW20110322

[mslucky]

Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update (22 March 2011, 04:15 UTC)

Japanese authorities have reported that they will measure radioactivity in the marine environment

around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The monitoring will be conducted from 22-23 March

by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). Sea water sampling from

eight locations will be sampled and analysed by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), and results

will be provided on 24 March. The analysis will include radionuclide concentrations found in sea water

and dose rate. The IAEA will continue to follow this information.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/...iupdate01.html

[NWPhotog]

Radiation from Japan has reached Washington state, but the Department of Health says there is no health risk.

According to Tim Church with the Department of Health, the small amounts of radioactive iodine are millions of times lower than levels that would be a health issue and the state's overall background radiation levels haven't risen.

Because of the distance between Japan and Washington, the radiation has had plenty of opportunity to mix with the atmosphere, Church said in a news release.

You're urged not to take potassium iodide or KI. Only people living or working near the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant during the emergency should take the pills.

Radiation was detected on beans in Taiwan over the weekend, but officials in Japan say they're taking steps to stop contaminated products from reaching consumers _ and the U.S. and other countries are double-checking imports.

The Chernobyl disaster made clear that radiation from food can be a real risk: Thousands of cases of thyroid cancer after the 1986 reactor explosion there are blamed on the Soviet Union's failure to stop children in the region from drinking milk contaminated with radioactive iodine _ children who also weren't given a thyroid-protecting drug, potassium iodide.

Japan's earthquake-damaged reactors haven't leaked nearly as much radiation as Chernobyl, and aren't expected to _ and this time around, people are being warned, food is being tested and there's potassium iodide in the high-risk zone.

Japan has banned sale of milk, spinach and a few other products in regions from the leaking power plant toward Tokyo after discovery of higher-than-allowed levels of radiation in a range of foods. On Monday, the World Health Organization said Japan should act quickly to ensure that no contaminated foods are sold _ as a precaution against long-term risk to nearby residents who otherwise might repeatedly consume large amounts of those products.

Still, international scientists say risk from food in Japan so far is low, especially outside the disaster zone _ and in the U.S. in particular because it imports very little food from Japan.

Besides, there was radiation in food well before Japan's earthquake and tsunami.

"The world is covered in cesium-137 from the atomic weapons tests of the `50s and `60s," says nuclear physicist Patrick Regan of the University of Surrey in England.

"There is radioactivity in all food. It's really a matter of saying how much," agrees University of New Mexico radiologist Dr. Fred Mettler, who studied the health effects of the Chernobyl disaster.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=448465

[It'sJustMe]

This goes into a little detail about the difficulties these workers are facing. There are photos of the workers standing right outside one of the damaged buildings at this link. Fair use:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/03...ard-to-control

Japan nuclear crisis: Why are the spent-fuel pools so hard to control?

On Tuesday, one pool was reportedly so hot that its remaining water was either boiling or close to it. The spent-fuel pools have been a continuing source of problems in the Japan nuclear crisis.

*

In this photo, workers in protective suits conduct cooling operation by spraying water at the damaged No. 4 unit of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex in Okuma, northeastern Japan, Tuesday, March 22.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. via Kyodo News/AP
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By Peter Grier, Staff writer / March 22, 2011
Washington

As workers struggle to bring the Fukushima I nuclear plant back under full control, spent-fuel pools appear to be a source of continuing problems. On Tuesday morning, one pool was so hot that its remaining water was either boiling or close to it, according to the Associated Press.
Skip to next paragraph

*

Gallery: Japan survivors

Related Stories

* Japan says high seawater radiation levels are no cause for alarm
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Emergency crews dumped 15 tons of seawater into the pool to cool it to about 105 degrees F., Japanese authorities said later in the day.

If heat in the pool continues to build and water boils down and fuel rods stored in the pool are exposed, more radiation might escape into the atmosphere.

RELATED: Narrow escapes in Japan

Yet firetrucks and other water-pumping equipment have been shooting streams of water at these pools for days during the Japan nuclear crisis. Why are they so proving so difficult to manage?

The pools at the Fukushima complex are just that – open basins resembling swimming pools. Six are perched on a sort of mezzanine above and adjacent to reactor containment vessels. They’re about 40 feet long by 30 feet wide by 36 feet deep, though they vary in size.

In total they can hold about 1,300 to 1,400 metric tons of water, serving as both a shield to keep radiation from escaping and a coolant to lower the residual heat that spent fuel rods generate.

The pools contain anywhere from 400 to 700 fuel-rod assemblies, according to data compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists. These assemblies sit on racks just above the pool floor. During normal operation, the water level in the pools is kept about 30 feet above the top of the assemblies.

But these are not normal times. Though electric lines have now been hooked up to all six reactor units, the pumps that circulate cooling water inside reactor buildings are not yet working. Some have been damaged and will need to be replaced.

Temporary pumps and firetrucks are doing what they can to keep water in the pools. A powerful cement-pumping truck that will be used to shoot water, greatly increasing pumping capacity, arrived at Fukushima on Tuesday, according to Japanese authorities.

But Fukushima workers “don’t have the array of pumps they might otherwise have,” said David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a Tuesday phone briefing for reporters.

It’s possible that the workers are thus practicing triage, disconnecting pumps from fuel pools in order to rush water through reactor cores, or an adjacent pool that is in greater danger, said Mr. Lochbaum.

Boiling water by itself is not a danger, he pointed out. The problems would begin if water boiled away, exposing fuel rods. If a pool is fully filled, that would take some time.

“That might be a strategy that they are employing, based on the limited array of equipment they have at the moment,” he said.

It is also possible that one or more of the pools is leaking. The sides of the pools have doors, which open to allow cranes to move fuel-rod assemblies from the reactor to the pool. These doors have inflatable seals that guard against leakage.

“If a seal is deflated, that is fairly significant damage,” said Lochbaum.

[Cascadians]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...MDB_story.html
By Associated Press, Tuesday, March 22, 1:03 PM

Japan nuclear crisis provokes anger, shows lack of preparedness

FUKUSHIMA, Japan — When the massive earthquake and tsunami rocked northeast Japan on March 11, residents who had been prepared by years of drills knew exactly what to do: They scrambled for cover until the shaking stopped, then ran for higher ground to avoid the giant wave.

But when word came that the disasters had left the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant leaking radiation, residents were baffled. Should they run? Stay indoors? Drink the water? Eat the food?

Japan, famous for drilling its citizens on how to prepare for all manner of natural disasters, has done far less to prepare those who live near its many nuclear reactors for emergencies. This has left neighbors of the crippled Fukushima power station confused, misinformed and angry in the face of the country’s worst-ever nuclear crisis.

“The only time I ever learned anything in school about nuclear stuff was when we studied about Chernobyl in history class,” said Chiyo Maeda, a bank clerk who lived only 16 miles (25 kilometers) from the plant before her home was destroyed by the tsunami. “If we had known more before this happened, maybe we could have reacted more calmly.”

Japan takes disaster preparedness seriously. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese take part in an annual drill every Sept. 1 — the anniversary of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake in Tokyo that killed 142,000 people. The exercise, which usually involves the military and civilians — including the prime minister — has sometimes even seen participation by the U.S. Navy.

And yet, in dozens of interviews with The Associated Press, residents evacuated from the most dangerous areas said they never received any information about how to avoid the radiation threat in an emergency, a basic requirement in some other countries that operate nuclear power facilities.

They hadn’t heard of any drills organized by the government or the power company that runs the plant. And they were mystified by the radiation readings and technical language used by officials to explain the crisis.

Yuji Kusano, a maintenance worker at the doomed plant, said staffers were trained for fires and emergencies. “But nothing was done to educate the residents nearby,” he said. “I just think no one ever expected this.”

Government and utility officials conceded they did not have the resources, nor did they think it was necessary, to distribute pamphlets or conduct a public awareness campaign on what to do in the event of a nuclear emergency, except in the immediate vicinity of the plant.

Fukushima prefecture distributes leaflets in newspapers twice a month to 20,000 households immediately around the nuclear plant with basic instructions, like close the windows and stay inside. But that’s only a fraction of the 245,000-or-so people living within 19 miles (30 kilometers) of the plant who have either been told to evacuate or stay indoors since the crisis began.

Takeyoshi Murakami, a prefectural official in charge of nuclear safety, conceded that authorities would have to review the entire public outreach program. “Nobody anticipated it would cover such a large area,” he said.

Yoshihiro Amano, a grocery store owner about 3½ miles (6 kilometers) from the reactors, said he never paid much attention to them. “They mainly just said everything was safe” about the reactors, he said.

And though they did hold a drill three years ago at the Fukushima plant, only a tiny fraction of residents in the danger zone participated, while others had no idea it was even held.

“We have no manual on what to do in case of a nuclear accident,” said Yukio Nishiyama, a disaster prevention official in Tamura, a city of about 41,000 that lies partly within the zone where officials have told residents to stay indoors. “So far the only thing we can do is just follow instructions from the government.”

Other countries have varying requirements for nuclear emergency preparedness.

In the U.S., nuclear plants are required to provide annual detailed emergency plans to residents within the 10-mile (16-kilometer) evacuation zone. The Indian Point nuclear plant near New York City, which has preparedness plans typical of other U.S. nuclear sites, sends manuals to every resident and business in the evacuation zone explaining everything from evacuation procedures to the usefulness of potassium iodide pills in helping prevent radiation-induced thyroid cancer. Residents can sign up to receive warnings by telephone or email and there is a warning siren for those in the evacuation area.

In Britain, plant operators are required to distribute information to surrounding residents, including basic facts about radiation and its effects, and what to do in an emergency.

An internal disaster management plan for Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant obtained by the AP outlined contingency plans, coordination with the government and employee education about nuclear accidents. But the 82-page plan devoted only one sentence and four brief bullet points to the subject of public preparedness, including the need to inform people about radioactivity and the special nature of nuclear disasters.

Japan requires nuclear plants to hold disaster prevention exercises, but preparedness generally does not involve the general public, government officials and executives at Tokyo Electric acknowledged.

Yuhei Sato, Fukushima’s governor, said nuclear accident drills are held once a year, but only for selected local representatives.

“We can’t possibly do them for tens of thousands of people,” he told the AP.

Japan’s Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama said the government and nuclear operators hold drills several times a year, including an annual nationwide exercise headed by the prime minister. Still, he acknowledged more must be done to raise public awareness.

“Even though we try to provide information regarding nuclear accidents as much as possible, it would have been difficult for most residents to anticipate a crisis like this to actually happen in their neighborhood,” he said. “I think we should learn a lesson from what happened and review our contingency plans.”

But even the most detailed preparedness can’t solve one major problem: Many people simply don’t pay attention until disaster strikes.

“Getting people to actually come for a briefing or participate in a drill or whatever is like pulling teeth,” said Matthew Bunn, professor of public policy at Harvard University. “People who live near nuclear power plants usually don’t know a whole lot more than other people do, about what the risks are or what the procedures would be, if there were a crisis.”

Officials did hold a drill at Fukushima in 2008 that involved 4,000 people, including 1,800 residents from nearby towns.

The mock scenario was based on one of the reactors losing its cooling capacity and releasing radiation — similar to the current situation. The exercise was intended to give people more information about how they could protect themselves in an emergency, evacuation procedures and what medical assistance is available for radiation exposure.

In an evaluation report written after the drill, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said there was a need for better public education. But none of that appears to have trickled down to the people now affected by the disaster.

“Nobody here knows what a microsievert is,” said 59-year-old Tomio Hirota, referring to the unit used to measure a dose of radiation. “I had never heard of that until all this happened. We don’t understand what’s going on, so we worry.”

Chiho Watanabe, a teacher in Fukushima, said the school has regular fire and earthquake drills, but had done nothing to plan for a nuclear crisis. Nor did it have any monitoring devices for radiation.

“We had done absolutely nothing to prepare for a nuclear crisis. This experience serves as a lesson for us that we need to be better prepared,” Watanabe said. “I hope others around the world who live near nuclear plants will study what happened here and learn from it.”

Getting better, clearer information to the public could not come too soon for Yumiko Ogata, a rice and vegetable farmer in Fukushima who is worried that radiation, which has already contaminated water, milk and some vegetables, could destroy her own livelihood growing radishes and lettuce.

“I guess we just trusted the government that the nuclear plants were safe,” she said. “What else could we do? The nuclear facilities never instructed us that we needed to be ready for something like this.”