It was harder to assess damage outside the capital because of cut phone communications. Store shelves were stripped bare by shoppers and thousands more spent the night in their offices. Many in Tokyo spent the night in their cars trying to get home because the highways were closed and cars clogged the city's streets. Four million buildings were without power. Hours after the buildings stopped shaking, fires still burned and Tokyo remained largely paralyzed with phone and train service halted on Friday. Eerily, fires burned in the watery mess as it flowed along.Įntire villages were swept away and four bullet trains with an unknown number of people onboard lost contact with rail operators Friday, according to the Kyodo News Agency. It triggered a tsunami that unleashed a menacing stew of debris with objects as large as ships, cars and houses coursing over the countryside and into towns, crushing buildings and everything in its path. The earthquake, the fifth largest in recorded history and the largest ever to hit Japan, struck about 2:46 p.m. Five million households lack electricity. There are 200,000 people living in temporary shelters after being evacuated to higher ground and more than 1 million households are without water. Tsunami survivors were plucked by helicopters and from rooftops, but hundreds more along the 1,300-mile stretch of coastline are waiting to be rescued. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said he dispatched 50,000 troops for recovery efforts as powerful aftershocks continue to rattle the region. Meanwhile, Japanese authorities are racing to rescue those trapped in the rubble after an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami left hundreds dead and a nuclear reactor on the verge of a possible of meltdown. Japanese authorities say they have plans to distribute iodine to residents in the area around both the Fukushima Daiichi and nearby Fukushima Daini plants.
JAPANESE REACTOR MELTDOWN UPDATE HOW TO
The Japanese government and Tepco have indicated that the new facilities will be completed by mid-April next year, with the aim of starting discharge in around the spring of 2023.īefore granting the initial approval, NRA has looked into various factors such as the performance of equipment for diluting water with seawater, how to stop the release of water in the event of an abnormality and counter-measures against earthquakes and tsunami, the official said.Three evacuees have been exposed to radiation, but have not shown signs of illness, a disaster official told The Associated Press.
Tepco plans to build a tunnel reaching into the sea for the operation.Įven after the NRA's approval, Tepco still requires the consent of local communities, including the governor and mayors, before starting construction work, a Tepco spokesperson said. Tepco will then dilute the water until tritium levels fall less than 1/40th of regulatory limits, before pumping it into the ocean. Tepco plans to filter the contaminated water to remove isotopes, leaving only tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen hard to separate from water. Grossi told Japanese industry minister Koichi Hagiuda that the IAEA's reviews would give the world confidence that the water in question will have no negative impact on the public's health, the industry ministry said in a written statement. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is tasked with conducting safety reviews of the planned release, and the NRA's initial approval came when IAEA chief Rafael Grossi was visiting Japan. The announcement provoked concerns from local fishermen and objections from neighbouring China and South Korea.
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