Fears mount as Japan battles nuclear emergency

©AFP / Jiji Press

A person believed to be have been contaminated with radiation is taken to a radiation treatment centre in Nihonmatsu city in Fukushima prefecture on March 13. Japan is battling a feared meltdown of two reactors at a quake-hit nuclear plant, as the full horror of the disaster emerges on the ravaged northeast coast where more than 10,000 are feared dead.

©AFP / Jiji Press

At least 22 people have been hospitalised after being exposed to radioactivity

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (AFP) - Japan battled a feared meltdown of two reactors at a quake-hit nuclear plant on Sunday, as the full horror of the disaster emerged on the ravaged northeast coast where more than 10,000 were feared dead.
An explosion at the ageing Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant blew apart the building housing one of its reactors on Saturday, a day after the biggest quake ever recorded in Japan unleashed a monster 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami.
The atomic emergency widened on Sunday as the cooling systems vital for preventing overheating failed at a second reactor, and the government warned there was a risk it too could be hit with a blast.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the situation at the stricken power plant remained grave, and that Japan was facing its worst crisis since the end of World War II -- which left the beaten country in ruins.
Scene:Mud-strewn wastelands replace Japanese towns

©AFP

VIDEO: Tokyo residents stock up on food amid nuclear fears. Duration: 00:75

"The current situation of the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear plants is in a way the most severe crisis in the past 65 years since World War II," Kan said at a press conference.
"Whether we Japanese can overcome this crisis depends on each of us."
Kan said that the shutdown of reactors across the quake zone left Japan at risk of large-scale power outages, and urged citizens to conserve energy. Japan's nuclear industry provides about a third of the nation's power needs.
Top government spokesman Yukio Edano said it was highly likely a meltdown had occurred at the plant's number-one reactor, and a second such incident was possible at the plant 250 kilometres (160 miles) northeast of Tokyo.

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Nuclear reactor in danger

"There is the possibility of an explosion in the number-three reactor," he said, while voicing confidence it would withstand the blast as the first reactor had the day before.
A meltdown occurs when a reactor core overheats and causes damage to the facility, potentially unleashing radiation into the environment.
Edano said that some radiation had escaped in the accident, but that the levels released into the air had so far not reached levels high enough to affect human health.
The colossal 8.9-magnitude tremor sent waves of mud and debris racing over towns and farming land in Japan's northeast, destroying all before it and turning swathes of countryside into a swampy wasteland.

©AFP / Jiji Press

Some 10,000 people remain unaccounted for in the small port town of Minamisanriku alone

In the small port town of Minamisanriku alone some 10,000 people were unaccounted for -- more than half the population of the town, which was practically erased, public broadcaster NHK reported.
Scene:People turn ever more to web in times of crisis
The police chief in Miyagi prefecture -- where Minamisanriku is situated -- said the death toll was certain to exceed 10,000 in his district.
But in a rare piece of good news, a man who was swept 15 kilometres (nine miles) out to sea along with his house by the tsunami was plucked to safety Sunday after being spotted clinging to a piece of the roof.
Hiromitsu Shinkawa, 60, was discovered by a Japanese destroyer and transported by helicopter to hospital, where he was in surprisingly good health after his miracle rescue.
But as the world's third-largest economy struggled to assess the full extent of the disaster, groups of hundreds of bodies were being found along the shattered coastline.

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©AFP iactiv

Japan: Deadly quake-tsunami disaster. FLASH GRAPHIC

Edano said at least 1,000 people were believed to have lost their lives, and police said more than 215,000 people were huddled in emergency shelters.
In the city of Fukushima, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) northwest of the stricken plant, AFP reporters saw panic-buying at supermarkets and petrol stations that had run dry.
In Minamisoma town, which was virtually obliterated by the tsunami's black tide of mud and debris, an AFP reporter saw fire volunteers collecting bodies found in the twisted wreckage of what had once been a residential area.
An elderly woman wrapped in a blanket tearfully recalled how she and her husband were evacuated from Kesennuma town, another fishing port which the tsunami swept through.
"I was trying to escape with my husband, but water quickly emerged against us and forced us to run up to the second storey of a house of people we don't even know at all," she told NHK.
"Water still came up to the second floor, and before our eyes, the house's owner and his daughter were flushed away. We couldn't do anything. Nothing."

©AFP / Toru Yamanaka

The power of the water swept up cars and lorries which now litter the roads

The sheer power of the water tossed cars like small toys, upturned lorries that now litter the roads, and left shipping containers piled up along the shore.
Many survivors were left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food, as authorities appeared overwhelmed by the monumental scale of the disaster.
With ports, airports, highways and manufacturing plants shut down, the government said there would be a "considerable impact on a wide range of our country's economic activities".
The International Atomic Energy Agency said about 200,000 people had so far been evacuated from the area around the two Fukushima plants that house a total of 10 reactors.

©AFP/JiJi Press

Some radiation has escaped from one Japanese nuclear plant, but the amount has so far not reached dangerous levels

The UN's nuclear watchdog said four people were injured in the blast, and one person was killed and four injured in a crane accident at the nearby Fukushima No. 2 plant.
Japan's nuclear safety agency rated the incident at four on the international scale of zero to seven. The 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States was rated five, while the 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a seven.
Japan committed 100,000 troops -- about 40 percent of the armed forces -- to spearhead a mammoth rescue and recovery effort with hundreds of ships, aircraft and vehicles headed to the Pacific coast area.
"There are so many people who are still isolated and waiting for assistance. This reality is very stark," Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa was quoted as saying by Kyodo News.

©AFP / Philippe Lopez

Other nations, including China, have rallied to assist Japan with the rescue mission

The world rallied behind the disaster-stricken nation, with offers of help even from Japan's traditional rival China.
The US aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan reached waters off the northeast coast Sunday, part of a flotilla sent by Japan's close ally which has nearly 50,000 military personnel in the country.
The massive earthquake, one of the largest in recorded history, appears to have shifted the main Japanese island by about eight feet (2.4 metres), the US Geological Survey said.
The Japan Meteorological Agency's director of earthquake prediction said Sunday there was a 70 percent chance of 7-magnitude aftershock within the next three days -- a shake that could destroy buildings and trigger more tsunamis.
Japan sits on the "Pacific Ring of Fire", and Tokyo is in one of its most dangerous areas, where three continental plates are slowly grinding against each other, building up enormous seismic pressure.

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