Massive 8.9 earthquake, tsunami hit Japan

[LETHALFORCE]

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/repor...vist-safety-aspects-of-nuclear-plants_1519448

NPCIL, Atomic Board to revisit safety aspects of nuclear plants

India's top nuclear bodies today said they would revist all safety aspects of atomic plants in the country and analyse the nuclear crisis arising in Japan after the tsunami as it has offered new lessons to fine tune existing emergency preparedness.

"We will not jump to say that our power reactors will not suffer a similar kind of situation but we are planning to revisit all the safety aspects of our plants after doing a complete analysis of the Japanese incident and share the entire safety means with the public in a transparent way," chairman and managing director of Nuclear Power Corporation of India SK Jain said.

This is a general practice adopted by World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) and NPCIL will closely work with the department of Atomic Energy and Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to revisit the safety aspects in an objective manner in the coming days, Jain said.

"Although the Fukushima incident is a rarest of sequence of combination of events, we will be doing a complete analysis of it as to what might have gone wrong and how," chairman, Atomic Energy Commission Srikumar Banerjee said.

Japan today warned of another explosion at Fukushima plant as it battled hard to avert multiple meltdowns at two of its nuclear reactors damaged by the devastating tsunami triggered earthquake.

In the International Nuclear Event Scale, the Three Mile Island accident was at level 5, Chrnobyl was at level 7, where as the current Japanese incident is at level 4.

Jain said, out of the 20 operating Indian reactors, 18 are Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors, two are Boiling Water Reactors. The two reactors of 1000 MW of Russian VVER-1000 type under construction at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu have Generation-3 plus designs.

Between BWR (Tarapur units 1 and 2 and the Japanese reactors at Fukushima Daiichi) and PHWR there is a big difference as the PHWR reactor has 100 to 200 tonne of cold moderator which surrounds all the coolant channels.Calendria is submerged in a cool water of canlendria vault (1000 tonnes).

There is a very big heat sink available in PHWRs and secondly, unlike the BWR, the PHWR is also cooled by naturally occurring siphon mechanism.Since the steam generator located at a higher elevation, directly injecting water from the firefighting system into the generator is also available as a supplement, he said.

Jain said, "The uniqueness of Indian system is that NPCIL has got centralized online monitoring system of all the power stations which are operating in Mumbai. We have all the emergency control centre where plants live parameters are online through satellite," he said.

"Parameters are available for various safety and reactor systems where safety experts can assemble within few minutes can do the entire parallel analysis and also in continuous contact with the stations," he said.

"Design safety, safety analysis capacity are available as a back up of operating plants which is unique to India," Jain said adding "it is a big strength."

Inspite of all these, with open mind we will be revisiting the safety aspects and share them with the public, Jain stressed.

AERB chairman, SS Bajaj said, "We do not allow any of the reactors to operate unless all the emergency plans in place. The operators (NPCIL) have to conduct an actual exercise before getting clearance for operation of the plant and also the exercises are repeated every two years".

Even in the rarest of rare scenario, there is enough time for emergency planning of evacuation. Citing the case of Japan, he said on Friday a high alert was given, on Saturday general emergency was declared and evacuation upto 3 km and the radioactive release happened after the emergency precautions were taken.

"Of course, after this incident, new lessons for all the nuclear community to improve and fine tune the existing emergency preparedness. We will review it in the light of the recent Japanese incident," Bajaj said.

Meanwhile, seismologists (earthquake specialists) here said, all Indian reactors are not on coast and the Indian coastline is more than 2000 km away from Sunda trench where mega earthquakes can occur.

"Hence, similarity analysis of reactor accidents/incidents between Japanese reactors which are few hundred kilometers away from mega subduction zones and Indian coastal reactors which are few thousand kilometers away from Sunda trench should be done objectively," they said.

 

[LETHALFORCE]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...ush-demand-from-india/articleshow/7691638.cms

Biz with Japan to be hit; rebuilding to push demand from India

NEW DELHI: Devastation in Japan will hit the Indo-Japanese trade at least in the short-run, even though reconstruction activity in the affected cities may lead to increased demand for Indian steel, experts said.

"In the short-term, delivery of goods in transit will be affected...it would also have impact on exporters' payments," President of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) Ramu S Deora said.

India-Japan bilateral trade stood at over $ 10 billion in 2009-10. India's exports to Japan comprise steel, iron ore, chemicals, while imports include machinery, mechanical parts, auto components and chemicals.

With a desire to give a quantum jump to trade in goods, services and investment, the two countries had last month signed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

It was expected to boost market access for Indian exporters in pharmaceutical sector, agricultural produce including instant tea, seafood and garments.

"For a couple of weeks, sea cargos would be affected but air cargos will not be really impacted," Justin Paul, formerly Professor with Nagoya University,third largest in Japan,said.

The business transactions would also be impacted as the banking systems were hit due to vast damage to the infrastructure in north east Japanese cities.

According to trade expert Arun Goyal, "A lot of Japanese companies are operating in India. So, there could be a slowdown in investment in the short-run."

Out of $ 126.4 billion FDI into India , Japan contributed $ 5 billion between 2000 to 2010.

However, when the rebuilding of the cities hit by earthquake and Tsunami begin, demand for items like steel is expected to increase.

 

[Tshering22]

everyone's sending rescue teams & equipment, sniffer dogs, radiation detectors and we are sending woolen blankets!

Our target is not containment but the help of common people who don't have stuff to keep themselves warm in Japanese winter and have lost their everything. I am sure that the planes will be having more than just blankets; maybe some tonnes of food and other essentials as well.

The Japanese are reportedly going to build reactors in India in the US nuke deal, seems our indigenous reactors are better built??

That is because the Tsunami waters did not come anywhere near Kalpakkam plant in TN, mate. If that had been the case, we would have been in a heap of trouble. It is silly to doubt Japanese capability who are perfectionists in technology already and are far ahead of us in these terms since they had access to this stuff long before India had and without restrictions imposed ever.

 

[sesha_maruthi27]

Guys there is going to be another earth quake measuring 8.0 or high in 2 or 3 days. It is a very bad news for JAPAN. Just now the news readers of CNN reported this.

 

[Rage]

Guys there is going to be another earth quake measuring 8.0 or high in 2 or 3 days. It is a very bad news for JAPAN. Just now the news readers of CNN reported this.

Wow! I feel a pall of sadness over me.

And for being so much-prepared, they are none the better for it.

 

[Rage]

Is this really true?

If it is, I'm stunned.


Quake unleased 1,000 times energy of all n-weapons

13 Mar, 2011, 02.30PM IST,IANS


LONDON: The total energy released by the megaquake in Japan was about a thousand times the combined energy of all the world's nuclear weapons or 6.7 trillion tons of TNT.

It is a grim reminder of the fact that undersea earthquakes can be so much more devastating than those on the land. They can generate the most destructive of tsunamis, especially those occurring along substantial linear faults off the coast of Japan.

Like the New Zealand quake, the catastrophe in Japan was a result of the titanic geological forces operating around the Pacific "Ring of Fire".

This is a 25,000-mile belt of earthquakes and volcanoes encircling the Pacific Ocean, a chain of giant fault lines which separate some of the largest of the Earth's tectonic plates - the dozen-or-so slabs of solid rock which make up our planet's crust.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater, the Daily Mail reports.

Several continental and oceanic plates - the Pacific Plate, Philippine Plate, Eurasian Plate and North American Plate - meet in the Japan area, which is why there are so many volcanoes and hot springs across the nation.

Located in a volcanic zone so active, it is nicknamed the Pacific Ring of Fire, where catastrophic earthquakes occur several times each century.

The plates themselves consist of sheets of basalt and granite between five and 30 miles thick, underpinning both the continents and the ocean floors.

They float on the viscous, semi-molten rocks beneath the crust and are able to move, typically a few inches a year, propelled by currents deep in the mantle - the part of the Earth below the crust.

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake Friday afternoon set off huge tsunami waves, some as high as 10 metres, that rushed ashore for several kilometres along Japan's northeastern coast, sweeping everything in their path - buildings, cars, ships and people, and killing over 1,000 people.


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...ergy-of-all-n-weapons/articleshow/7692129.cms

 

[Rage]

Well, this is good. At least, the fakirchand Government has sat up and taken notice.


Indian N-plants 'safe', but safety audit on cards

13 Mar, 2011, 09.31AM IST,TNN

MANGALORE: The radiation leak in Japan is raising safety concerns in India, bringing the focus back on our crisis management plans.

How good are our safety procedures? How quick are our evacuation plans? Scientists say India?s nuclear power plants have fool-proof safety profiles; they have been designed with worst-case scenarios in mind. But, following the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, India must now review safety.

"The safety features of Indian nuclear plants have to be rechecked to assess whether they can tackle inoperable situations", says former Atomic Energy Commission chairman and its current member, M R Srinivasan, who has visited the Fukushima plant. "It was constructed to withstand natural calamities. But what happened on Friday was something unusual: It was a deadly combination of a strong earthquake and a tsunami which struck the nuclear plant and damaged it".

Once details emerge about the Japanese nuclear incident, Indian nuclear scientists are likely to highlight the stress points and prepare a detailed safety audit for nuclear plants in India, especially their preparedness in unforeseen circumstances.

Nuclear reactors are designed to withstand earthquakes specific to the seismic zones they are located in. In the case of Fukushima, it is clear the intensity of the earthquake was more than what the plant was designed to withstand.
How safe are our nuclear plants in Kaiga (Karnataka) and Kalpakkam (Tamil Nadu)? Scientists say there is no danger to the Kaiga plant since it has been set up on a high point and is far away from the coast.

In fact, the Kalpakkam plant did not suffer any damage during the 2004 tsunami. An additional wall was built to protect the plant after the tsunami. Similarly, when Gujarat was struck by an earthquake in 2001, it had no impact on the Kakrpar atomic power station near Surat, GJ.

The design of a nuclear reactor is location specific. "The thickness and the height of their walls are planned considering the area where a plant is set up", says chief spokesperson, department of atomic energy, S K Malhotra.

"There are two fast-acting independent and diverse shutdown systems at Kaiga. We also have a safety measures committee which conducts a mock exercise every two years to check the preparedness of different departments in case of an emergency". says G. P. Gupta , site director, Kaiga nuclear-power station.

"The Kalpakkam plant was saved when a tsunami hit Tamil Nadu's coast because a decision had been taken to install electrical systems about 50 ft above the ground. Consequently, nothing was submerged when the area was struck by the tsunami", says a former chairman of AEC, P K Iyengar.

Now, given the intensity of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, nuclear scientists will have to be prepared for extreme, or inoperable, situations.

The Kalpakkam plant was saved when a tsunami hit Tamil Nadu's coast because a decision had been taken to install electrical systems about 50 ft above the ground

P K Iyengar FORMER CHAIRMAN AEC

Fukushima was built to withstand natural calamities. But what happened on Friday was a deadly combination of a strong quake and a tsunami.

M R SRINIVASAN, MEMBER AEC


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...safety-audit-on-cards/articleshow/7690760.cms

 

[LETHALFORCE]

That is because the Tsunami waters did not come anywhere near Kalpakkam plant in TN, mate. If that had been the case, we would have been in a heap of trouble.

It did hit Kalpakkam plant

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-civil-05a.html
Tsunami Makes India's Nuke Workers Jittery

Although India claims that its nuclear reactors in Tamil Nadu state withstood the tsunami lashes, workers and local residents around the Kalpakkam nuclear facility are feeling insecure and unsafe after the facility was deluged.

 

[Rage]

India Sends Plane load of Blankets to Japan

TNN | Mar 14, 2011, 12.22am IST

NEW DELHI: India has sent a planeload of blankets to Japan on Sunday, to help with the tsunami-stricken victims in the cold north-east of the country cope with weather, Foreign ministry officials said.

The government has asked the Haryana and Punjab to procure large numbers of woollen blankets, and sources said another lot of blankets will be soon sent. The request for blankets came from Japan, after PM Manmohan Singh assured his Japanese counterpart Naoto Kan that all of India's resources were at Japan's disposal. Alok Prasad, India's ambassador to Japan, told TOI that if the Japanese government needed, India would send medical teams to assist them as well. But by and large Japan's own systems have efficient and resilient, and that apart from early warning, evacuation and rehabilitation activities have been going on at full speed.

The Indian embassy has made contact with all the towns that have Indian expatriates living in them. In Tanida, close to the epicentre of the quake, 30 Indians had made it safely to the evacuation camps.

Prasad also said, that the Indian school in Tokyo, run by the embassy, kept over 50 of their students overnight on the day of the earthquake.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...-of-blankets-to-Japan/articleshow/7696758.cms

 

[pmaitra]

Is this really true?

If it is, I'm stunned.


Quake unleased 1,000 times energy of all n-weapons

13 Mar, 2011, 02.30PM IST,IANS


LONDON: The total energy released by the megaquake in Japan was about a thousand times the combined energy of all the world's nuclear weapons or 6.7 trillion tons of TNT.

It is a grim reminder of the fact that undersea earthquakes can be so much more devastating than those on the land. They can generate the most destructive of tsunamis, especially those occurring along substantial linear faults off the coast of Japan.

Like the New Zealand quake, the catastrophe in Japan was a result of the titanic geological forces operating around the Pacific "Ring of Fire".

This is a 25,000-mile belt of earthquakes and volcanoes encircling the Pacific Ocean, a chain of giant fault lines which separate some of the largest of the Earth's tectonic plates - the dozen-or-so slabs of solid rock which make up our planet's crust.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. The country accounts for about 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater, the Daily Mail reports.

Several continental and oceanic plates - the Pacific Plate, Philippine Plate, Eurasian Plate and North American Plate - meet in the Japan area, which is why there are so many volcanoes and hot springs across the nation.

Located in a volcanic zone so active, it is nicknamed the Pacific Ring of Fire, where catastrophic earthquakes occur several times each century.

The plates themselves consist of sheets of basalt and granite between five and 30 miles thick, underpinning both the continents and the ocean floors.

They float on the viscous, semi-molten rocks beneath the crust and are able to move, typically a few inches a year, propelled by currents deep in the mantle - the part of the Earth below the crust.

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake Friday afternoon set off huge tsunami waves, some as high as 10 metres, that rushed ashore for several kilometres along Japan's northeastern coast, sweeping everything in their path - buildings, cars, ships and people, and killing over 1,000 people.


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...ergy-of-all-n-weapons/articleshow/7692129.cms

Mathematically, yes (I did not verify the numbers myself but I trust the news-source). However, in an atomic or nuclear bomb, the problems live on for generations, with diseases like cancer and deformation that are transmitted into the offspring(s) of the victims and can carry on for generations. There is no statistical method to measure these damages that I know of, so we do not know if the effects of all nuclear weapons would have less effect than what happened in Japan.

Of course, exploding 6.7 trillion tons of TNT is not the same as exploding nuclear bombs having a combined yield equivalent to 6.7 trillion tons of TNT.

 

[prahladh]

Supposedly 5th strongest quake since 1900 and moved Japan by 8feet.

 

[SHASH2K2]

Radioactive Releases in Japan Could Last Months, Experts Say​

WASHINGTON — As the scale of Japan's nuclear crisis begins to come to light, experts in Japan and the United States say the country is now facing a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months.
The emergency flooding of two stricken reactors with seawater and the resulting steam releases are a desperate step intended to avoid a much bigger problem: a full meltdown of the nuclear cores in two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. On Monday, an explosion blew the roof off the second reactor, not damaging the core, officials said, but presumably leaking more radiation.

So far, Japanese officials have said the melting of the nuclear cores in the two plants is assumed to be "partial," and the amount of radioactivity measured outside the plants, though twice the level Japan considers safe, has been relatively modest.

But Pentagon officials reported Sunday that helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked up small amounts of radioactive particulates — still being analyzed, but presumed to include cesium-137 and iodine-121 — suggesting widening environmental contamination.

In a country where memories of a nuclear horror of a different sort in the last days of World War II weigh heavily on the national psyche and national politics, the impact of continued venting of long-lasting radioactivity from the plants is hard to overstate.

Japanese reactor operators now have little choice but to periodically release radioactive steam as part of an emergency cooling process for the fuel of the stricken reactors that may continue for a year or more even after fission has stopped. The plant's operator must constantly try to flood the reactors with seawater, then release the resulting radioactive steam into the atmosphere, several experts familiar with the design of the Daiichi facility said.

That suggests that the tens of thousands of people who have been evacuated may not be able to return to their homes for a considerable period, and that shifts in the wind could blow radioactive materials toward Japanese cities rather than out to sea.

Re-establishing normal cooling of the reactors would require restoring electric power — which was cut in the earthquake and tsunami — and now may require plant technicians working in areas that have become highly contaminated with radioactivity.

More steam releases also mean that the plume headed across the Pacific could continue to grow. On Sunday evening, the White House sought to tamp down concerns, saying that modeling done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had concluded that "Hawaii, Alaska, the U.S. Territories and the U.S. West Coast are not expected to experience any harmful levels of radioactivity."

But all weekend, after a series of intense interchanges between Tokyo and Washington and the arrival of the first American nuclear experts in Japan, officials said they were beginning to get a clearer picture of what went wrong over the past three days. And as one senior official put it, "under the best scenarios, this isn't going to end anytime soon."

The essential problem is the definition of "off" in a nuclear reactor. When the nuclear chain reaction is stopped and the reactor shuts down, the fuel is still producing about 6 percent as much heat as it did when it was running, caused by continuing radioactivity, the release of subatomic particles and of gamma rays.

Usually when a reactor is first shut down, an electric pump pulls heated water from the vessel to a heat exchanger, and cool water from a river or ocean is brought in to draw off that heat.

But at the Japanese reactors, after losing electric power, that system could not be used. Instead the operators are dumping seawater into the vessel and letting it cool the fuel by boiling. But as it boils, pressure rises too high to pump in more water, so they have to vent the vessel to the atmosphere, and feed in more water, a procedure known as "feed and bleed."

When the fuel was intact, the steam they were releasing had only modest amounts of radioactive material, in a nontroublesome form. With damaged fuel, that steam is getting dirtier.
Another potential concern is that some Japanese reactors (as well as some in France and Germany) run on a mixed fuel known as mox, or mixed oxide, that includes reclaimed plutonium. It is not clear whether the stricken reactors are among those, but if they are, the steam they release could be more toxic.
Christopher D. Wilson, a reactor operator and later a manager at Exelon's Oyster Creek plant, near Toms River, N.J., said, "normally you would just re-establish electricity supply, from the on-site diesel generator or a portable one." Portable generators have been brought into Fukushima, he said.

Fukushima was designed by General Electric, as Oyster Creek was around the same time, and the two plants are similar. The problem, he said, was that the hookup is done through electric switching equipment that is in a basement room flooded by the tsunami, he said. "Even though you have generators on site, you have to get the water out of the basement," he said.

Another nuclear engineer with long experience in reactors of this type, who now works for a government agency, was emphatic. "To completely stop venting, they're going to have to put some sort of equipment back in service," he said. He asked not to be named because his agency had not authorized him to speak.

The central problem arises from a series of failures that began after the tsunami. It easily overcame the sea walls surrounding the Fukushima plant. It swamped the diesel generators, which were placed in a low-lying area, apparently because of misplaced confidence that the sea walls would protect them. At 3:41 p.m. Friday, roughly an hour after the quake and just around the time the region would have been struck by the giant waves, the generators shut down. According to Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant switched to an emergency cooling system that operates on batteries, but these were soon depleted.

Inside the plant, according to industry executives and American experts who received briefings over the weekend, there was deep concern that spent nuclear fuel that was kept in a "cooling pond" inside one of the plants had been exposed and begun letting off potentially deadly gamma radiation. Then water levels inside the reactor cores began to fall. While estimates vary, several officials and industry experts said Sunday that the top four to nine feet of the nuclear fuel in the core and control rods appear to have been exposed to the air — a condition that that can quickly lead to melting, and ultimately to full meltdown.

At 8 p.m., just as Americans were waking up to news of the earthquake, the government declared an emergency, contradicting its earlier reassurances that there were no major problems. But the chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, stressed that there had been no radiation leak.

But one was coming: Workers inside the reactors saw that levels of coolant water were dropping. They did not know how severely. "The gauges that measure the water level don't appear to be giving accurate readings," one American official said.

What the workers knew by Saturday morning was that cooling systems at a nearby power plant, Fukushima Daini, were also starting to fail, for many of the same reasons. And the pressure in the No. 1 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi was rising so fast that engineers knew they would have to relieve it by letting steam escape.

Shortly before 4 p.m., camera crews near the Daiichi plant captured what appears to have been an explosion at the No. 1 reactor — apparently caused by a buildup of hydrogen. It was dramatic television but not especially dangerous — except to the workers injured by the force of the blast.

The explosion was in the outer container, leaving the main reactor vessel unharmed, according to Tokyo Electric's reports to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (The walls of the outer building blew apart, as they are designed to do, rather than allow a buildup of pressure that could damage the reactor vessel.)

But the dramatic blast was also a warning sign of what could happen inside the reactor vessel if the core was not cooled. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that "as a countermeasure to limit damage to the reactor core," Tokyo Electric proposed injecting seawater mixed with boron — which can choke off a nuclear reaction — and it began to do that at 10:20 p.m. Saturday.

It was a desperation move: The corrosive seawater will essentially disable the 40-year-old plant; the decision to flood the core amounted to a decision to abandon the facility. But even that operation has not been easy.

To pump in the water, the Japanese have apparently tried used firefighting equipment — hardly the usual procedure. But forcing the seawater inside the containment vessel has been difficult because the pressure in the vessel has become so great.

One American official likened the process to "trying to pour water into an inflated balloon," and said that on Sunday it was "not clear how much water they are getting in, or whether they are covering the cores."

The problem was compounded because gauges in the reactor seemed to have been damaged in the earthquake or tsunami, making it impossible to know just how much water is in the core.

And workers at the pumping operation are presumed to be exposed to radiation; several workers, according to Japanese reports, have been treated for radiation poisoning. It is not clear how severe their exposure was.

 

[sayareakd]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/14/japan-tsunami-nuclear-alert-live-coverage

5.38am (2.38pm JST): This screen grab, taken from NHK, shows the Fukushima No 1 nuclear plant before and after this morning's blast.

Officials say it was similar to the earlier hydrogen explosion; The Guardian's Ian Sample has put together this Q&A to explain how that happened.

5.15am (2.15pm JST): Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, says radiation levels at the unit are well below the legal limits following this morning's hydrogen explosion. Radiation at Unit 3 measured 10.65 microsieverts; operators must inform the government if a level of 500 microsieverts is reached.

Health experts have stressed that the risk from radiation appears low. Reuters has spoken to the Gregory Hartl of the World Health Organisation, who told the agency:

 

[Rage]

How people can help Japanese earthquake recovery

(AP) – 12 hours ago

The U.S. government and other nations were sending personnel to assist Japan in its response to the earthquakes and tsunami that have devastated the country. U.S. aid groups were accepting private donations for relief efforts.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has sent two of its officials with expertise in boiling water nuclear reactors. They joined a disaster response team with the U.S. International Agency for International Development, the primary federal agency that provides assistance to countries struck by a disaster.

USAID also sent two urban search and rescue teams to Japan at the request of the Japanese government, the agency said. The 75-person rescue teams, each with six dogs trained to detect live victims, were joining rescue teams from Japan and other countries.

The Pentagon has sent a second U.S. aircraft carrier to Japan and ordered another ship to the region to help as needed.

Also providing assistance:

—Britain. A search and rescue team of more than 60 specialists, two rescue dogs and a medical support team. They will be deployed first thing Monday morning. The British ambassador and a team of consular staff were in Sendai to assess the level of damage and to help locate British nationals.

—France. About 100 people including rescue workers, civil security squads and a medical team, plus 11 counterparts from neighboring Monaco, have been dispatched. Japanese authorities have asked them to assist in clearing and rescue efforts, a French Foreign Ministry official.

—Germany. The state-run THW aid agency has sent a 36-member team of rescue experts with dog. Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Germany has offered further help but that none has yet been requested.

—Italy, which was ready to offer rescue teams and other assistance. Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said his country was awaiting word from the Japanese government on what precisely was needed and where it should be deployed.

U.S. organizations accepting donations to assist Japan included:

Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA)

Donations: 800-424-ADRA (2372)

Donations address: ADRA International, 12501 Old Columbia Pike, Silver Spring MD 20904

Website: http://www.adra.org

All Hands Volunteers

Donations: 919-830-3573

Donations address: PO Box 546, Carlisle MA 01741

Website: http://www.hands.org/donate/japan-tsunami

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

Donations: 212-687-6200

Donations address: 132 E. 43rd St PO Box 530, New York NY 10017

Website: http://jdc.org

American Red Cross

Donations: 1-800-RED-CROSS

Donations address: PO Box 37243, Washington DC 20013

Website: http://www.redcross.org

AmeriCares

Donations: 203-658-9500

Donations address: 88 Hamilton Ave, Stamford CT 06902

Website: http://americares.org

Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team (AMURT)

Donations: 301-738-7122

Donations address: AMURT, 2502 Lindley Ter, Rockville MD 20850

Website: http://amurt.us

Baptist World Alliance/Baptist World Aid

Donations: 703-790-8980

Donations address: 405 N. Washington St, Falls Church VA 22046

Website: http://www.bwanet.org

Brother's Brother Foundation

Donations: 412-321-3160

Donations address: 1200 Galveston Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15233

Website: http://brothersbrother.org

Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation

Donations: 1-888-989-8244

Donations address: Tzu Chi USA HQ, 1100 S Valley Center Ave, San Dimas CA 91773

Website: http://www.us.tzuchi.org/usa/home.nsf/other/donateCharity

Catholic Relief Services

Donations: 1-877-HELP-CRS

Donations address: PO Box 17090, Baltimore MD 21203-7090

Website: http://crs.org

Christian Reformed World Relief Committee

Donations: 800-55-CRWRC

Donations address: CRWRC, 2850 Kalamazoo Ave SE, Grand Rapids MI 49560-0600

Website: http://www.crwrc.org

Church World Service

Donations: 1-800-297-1516

Donations address: PO Box 968, Elkhart IN 46515

Website: http://www.churchworldservice.org

Direct Relief International

Donations: 805-964-4767

Donations address: 27 S. La Patera Ln, Santa Barbara CA 93117

Website: http://www.DirectRelief.org

Giving Children Hope

Donations: 714-523-4454

Donations address: 8332 Commonwealth Ave, Buena Park CA 90621

Website: http://gchope.org

Habitat for Humanity International

Donations: 1-800-Habitat

Donations address: 270 Peachtree St NW Suite 1300, Atlanta GA 30303-1263

Website: http://habitat.org

International Medical Corps

Donations: 800-481-4462

Donations address: 1919 Santa Monica Blvd Suite 400, Santa Monica CA 90404

Website: http://internationalmedicalcorps.org

International Rescue Committee

Donations: 1-877-REFUGEE (733-8433)

Donations address: 122 E. 42nd St, New York NY 10168

Website: http://www.rescue.org

Mercy Corps

Donations: 800-852-2100

Donations address: Dept. NR, PO Box 2669, Portland OR 97208

Website: https://www.mercycorps.org/donate/japan

Operation Blessing

Donations: 800-730-2537

Donations address: 977 Centerville Tpke, Virginia Beach VA 23463

Website: http://www.operationblessing.org

Relief International

Donations: 310-478-1200

Donations address: 5455 Wilshire Blvd Suite 1280, Los Angeles CA 90036

Website: http://www.ri.org

Save the Children

Donations: 1-800-728-3843

Donations address: 54 Wilton Rd, Westport CT 06880

Website: http://savethechildren.org

World Vision, U.S.

Donations: 1-800-777-5777

Donations address: Federal Way, WA 98063

Website: http://www.worldvision.org

Source: InterAction, www.interaction.org


Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...XaZLFA?docId=6694265f7abc4ef68fb7ac41f918b99b

 

[Rage]

Taiwan search and rescue team heads for Japan


International search & rescue teams start to arrive in Japan

International rescue teams are rushing to Japan following the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami on Friday.

The American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan arrived off the coast of Japan on Sunday to provide logistical support for Japanese military forces.

The Americans say Japan has asked the carrier to refuel its helicopters and help transport its troops to affected areas.

A 144-member rescue team of the US Agency for International Development is due at Misawa in northern Japan later on Sunday to join inland operations.

The team includes 12 dogs trained to detect victims trapped under rubble and about 150 tonnes of rescue equipment.

Britain is sending a 59-strong search-and-rescue team and 11 tonnes of specialist rescue equipment including heavy lifting and cutting gear.

France said it was sending two civil security teams to help with rescue efforts.

And a 66-strong Japanese team which has spent more than two weeks searching the rubble from last month's 6.3-magnitude quake in Christchurch is due back home to confront the unfolding disaster.

The UN said Japan had also accepted help from Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea.

Rescue teams from another 39 countries are on standby.

New Zealand contribution

Members of a New Zealand Urban Search and Rescue team are due to begin arriving in Tokyo on Sunday evening.

The 48 member unit is being accompanied by 11 support staff including medics, engineers and communications experts.

The Fire Service's Christchurch Area Manager, Dan Coward, says the team and 15 tonnes of equipment are being transported by a mix of defence and commercial aircraft.

He says the Fire Service's Director of Special Operations, Jim Stuart-Black, is leading the New Zealand team.


http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/70422/international-rescue-teams-start-to-arrive-in-japan

 

[sesha_maruthi27]

Blast has occured at another reactor at FUKUSHIMA and another earth quake measuring 8 on richter scale may strike Japan in 2-3 days.

 

[mattster]

If any country can handle a disaster of this magnitude - it is probably the Japanese, since they are a highly disciplined society with all the technical skills you need. But if the reactor core melts down - I dont think any country is equiped to handle that

 

[sesha_maruthi27]

It is a very big disaster after the swcond world war bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

[amoy]

300km away from Tokyo

Hydrogen blast occurs at Fukushima nuke plant's No. 3 reactor: agency
The Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture is pictured in this August 2003 file photo. (Mainichi)TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A hydrogen explosion occurred Monday morning at the quake-hit Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant's troubled No. 3 reactor, the government's nuclear safety agency said.

The 11:01 a.m. incident came after a hydrogen explosion hit the No. 1 reactor at the same plant Saturday, and prompted the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to urge residents within a 20-kilometer radius to take shelter inside buildings.

It also followed a report by Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant's operator, to the government earlier in the day that the radiation level at the plant had again exceeded the legal limit and pressure in the container of the No. 3 reactor had increased.

The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has been shut down since a magnitude 9.0 quake struck northeastern and eastern Japan on Friday, but some of its reactors have lost their cooling functions, leading to brief rises in the radiation level over the weekend.

On Monday, radiation at the plant's premises rose over the benchmark limit of 500 micro sievert per hour at two locations, measuring 751 micro sievert at the first location at 2:20 a.m. and 650 at the second at 2:40 a.m., according to the report.

The hourly amounts are more than half the 1,000 micro sievert to which people are usually exposed in one year.

The maximum level detected so far around the plant is 1,557.5 micro sievert logged Sunday.

The utility had been pouring seawater into the plant's No. 1 and No. 3 reactors to help cool their cores, which are believed to have partially melted after part of the fuel rods were no longer covered by coolant water when levels fell following the quake.

The seawater injection stopped around 1 a.m. due to the shortage of water left in tanks, but resumed for No. 3 reactor at 3:20 a.m., according to the nuclear safety agency.

The halt of coolant water injection apparently caused rising pressure in the reactor container and an increase in the radiation level at the plant, the agency said.

TEPCO at one point planned to release radioactive steam from the No. 3 reactor container to depressurize it and ordered workers to vacate the site. But as the pressure later lowered, workers resumed operations at the site, according to the agency.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said pressure in the No. 1 reactor container has been stable and seawater injection for the reactor will resume later.

(Mainichi Japan) March 14, 2011

 

[Daredevil]

A very devastating natural disaster. RIP to the dead. A family of a friend of a friend got totally vanished in the Tsunami. Very sad to hear that. I think death toll will go even higher than present estimates given the ferocity with which the waves struck the shore.