Japan nuke plants ordered to beef up readiness

Reverberations jolted Japan on Saturday hours after the country's nuclear security agency prepared plant operators to beef up their earthquake-preparedness systems to put off a reappearance of the nuclear crisis roiling the county north of Tokyo.

There were no preliminary reports of damage from the magnitude-5.9 reverberations, and there was no risk of a tsunami similar to the one last month that crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, causing Japan's worst-ever nuclear plant blow. Japan has been hit by a string of slighter quake since the scale 9.0 earthquake hit the country on March 11.

In the meantime, the newspaper Asahi Shimbun, citing no sources, reported that a top secret plan to take to pieces Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the radiation-leaking Fukushima plant, was circulate within the government.

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Preventing blasts a focus at Japan nuclear plant

After notch a rare victory by stopping highly radioactive water from graceful into the Pacific, workers at Japan's flooded nuclear power many-sided turned to their next task Thursday: inject nitrogen to prevent more hydrogen detonation.

Nuclear officials said Wednesday there was no instantaneous threat of explosions like the three that rocked the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant not long after an immense tsunami hit on March 11, but their plans are a memento of how much work remains to calm the complex.

Workers are racing to cool down the plant's reactors, which have been overheating since power was knock out by the 9.scale earthquake and tsunami that killed as many as 25,000 people and cracked hundreds of miles (kilometers) of shoreline.

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Japan nuke plant spews more radiation into sea

Radiation in salt water at the beach off Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear power plant has calculated several million times the lawful limit over the past few days, although officials contended Tuesday that the contagion still does not pose an instant danger.

Radiation has been pouring in to the Pacific from the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake spawned a huge tsunami that inundated the complex. Over the weekend, workers there exposed a crack where highly contaminated water was spilling straight into the ocean.

Specialist has said that radiation dissipate quickly in the vast Pacific, except they have also said that it's unclear what the long-term effects of fat amounts of infectivity will be.

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Tokyo: Tap water not safe for infants

Tap water in Tokyo weathered two times on top of the limits for radioactive iodine careful safe for infants, officials said Wednesday amid growing concerns about food security in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami that crippled a nuclear power plant.

Levels of radioactive iodine in tap water at a water handling center in city center Tokyo that supplies much of the city's tap water limited 210 Becquerel’s per liter of iodine-131, administrators from the Tokyo Water Bureau said at a news symposium.

That amount is more than two times the optional limit of 100 Becquerel per liter for infants, the most vulnerable segment of the populace. Babies in Tokyo should not be fed tap water even though the level is not an urgent health risk for adults, officials said.

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Obama defends nuclear energy

President Barack Obama on Tuesday protected the use of nuclear energy in the face of the calamity in Japan where a nuclear power plant leaked waves in the wake of a overwhelming earthquake and tsunami.

The president told Pittsburgh television station KDKA that all power sources have their downsides but that the U.S. — which gets 20 percent of its electrical energy from nuclear power — requirements to look at the full selection of them.

The president said amenities in the U.S. are very much monitor and built to resist earthquakes, even though nothing's dependable. Proponents of nuclear power fear their efforts to win over the public to the shelter of their manufacturing have been dealt a tremendous blow by the catastrophe in Japan.

"I think it is very significant to make sure that we are doing everything we can to cover the safety and efficiency of the nuclear amenities that we have," the president said in a second TV interview Tuesday, with KOAT in Albuquerque, N.M.

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Japan tsunami: Nothing to do but run

Rising up in this small fish town on Japan's northeastern coast, 16-year-old Minami Sato by no means took the yearly tsunami drills gravely.

Her consideration the town's thick, two-story-high harbor walls would protect in opposition to any big wave. As well, her home was perched on a top of hill more than a mile (about two kilometers) from the water's edge. It was also just under a designated "tsunami refuge" — an well-known patch of grass that looked carefully down across the town's maximum four-story buildings.

But the oversize wave that slammed into Shizugawa last week "was ahead of mind's eye," the high-school student said. "There was naught we could do, but run."

The overwhelming tsunami that follow Friday's massive earthquake erased Shizugawa from the map, and raised questions about what, if anything, could have been done to stop it. More than half the town's 17,000 people are missing and scene of ruin dot the towns and villages along Japan's northeastern coast, destruction not seen here since the U.S. dropped tiny bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

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Calif. official: Tsunami damage upward of $40M

In the tsunami-battered port of this coastal city well-known for its surf, Jody Connolly massaged his red eyes as crews knotted to drag his 30-foot Trident boat out of the water Monday afternoon.

The hardwood floor outworker had made the boat his home for the past two years.

Connolly fled the boat when the first, influential surge of Friday's tsunami revolved in. He watched from land as the boat bankrupt from its jetty and sank while the entire dock crumbles.

"One split second I don't feel whatever thing. The next, I'm utterly torn up. It's kind of beating me in waves, kind of like the tsunami," he said.

As inhabitants like Connolly whose lives and livings depended on the harbor tried to save what they could, a California official on Monday predictable that statewide damage from last week's surge exceed $40 million.

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Japanese ordered indoors in radiation leak crisis

Rays leaked from a crippled nuclear plant in tsunami devastated northeastern Japan after a third reactor was rocked by a detonation Tuesday and a fourth fixed fire in a dramatic growth of the 4-day-old disaster. The government warned anyone close to stay indoors to avoid introduction.

Tokyo also reported somewhat elevated emission levels but officials said the augment was too small to threaten anybody in the capital.

In a countrywide televised report, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said emission has multiply from four reactors of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima territory, one of the hardest-hit in Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and the consequent tsunami that has killed above 10,000 people.

"The level seems extremely high, and there is still an extremely high risk of more emission coming out," Kan said. "We are making utmost efforts to stop further explosions and emission leaks."

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Indonesian volcano unleashes new powerful eruption

Indonesia's the majority unstable volcano — one of 22 that have been more and more active — spewed searing vapors of gas and debris for hours Monday in its most commanding eruption in a deadly week. No new casualties were without delay report.

Hundreds of miles (kilometers) to the west, a break in the weather helped liberators acquire aid to victims of an 18-foot (six meter) -high tsunami that slam into several distant islands, sweeping complete village to sea.

The double disasters, unfolding at the same time on opposite ends of the seismically vigorous country, have killed nearly 500 people and sternly tested the government's urgent situation response network. In both events, the armed has been called in to help.

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Spiritualist guardian of Indonesian volcano among those killed

INDONESIAN establishment are scrambling to deal with two lethal events after a tsunami and volcanic eruptions struck two region of the archipelago.

Rescue workers and fishermen searched for survivors in waters west of Sumatra after a influential earthquake and resulting tsunami killed at least 154 populace and left 400 missing on Monday. Thousands additional were left homeless.

Concerning 1200 kilometres to the east, on the island of Java, thousands of villagers fled eruption of Indonesia's most volatile volcano, Mount Merapi, after it begin spewing hot ash on Tuesday. Twenty-nine people have died, and at least 15 were injured, a number of with severe burns.

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Indonesia tsunami kills 113; scores more missing

Savior battled rough seas Tuesday to reach distant Indonesian islands crushed by a 10-foot (three-meter) tsunami that sweep away homes, killing at least 113 people. Achieves more were missing and in order was only beginning to trickle in from the thinly populated surfing purpose, so casualties were predictable to rise.

By means of few able to get to the islands to help with searches, fisherman was left to find the dead and look for the living. Corpses were strewn concerning since there were not sufficient people to dig graves, according to the Mentawai region chief, Edison Salelo Baja. More than 4,000 people predictable to spend the night without shelter since tents and other supplies had also not arrived.

The responsibility that ruptured Monday on Indonesia Sumatra Island’s coast also reasoned the 2004 quake and monster Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

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