Japan 3 months later - More than 8,000 still missing after quake

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More than 8,000 still missing after quake

The National Police Agency says 8,095 people are still missing three months after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami.

Of the 15,405 people who have been confirmed dead, about 2,000 have not yet been identified. Police say they are attempting to identify the bodies using DNA samples collected from people searching for their family members.

More than 2,000 police officers continue search operations in Miyagi, Iwate, and Fukushima prefectures in northeastern Japan.

Personnel from the Japanese Coast Guard and Self-Defense Forces are also searching local waters for the missing. More than 1,300 divers are taking part in the operations.

Saturday, June 11, 2011 07:57 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/11_02.html




Anti-nuke protests in Japan, 3 months after quake

JAY ALABASTER, Associated Press

Updated 05:36 a.m., Saturday, June 11, 2011

TOKYO (AP) — Protesters held mass demonstrations against nuclear power across Japan on Saturday, the three-month anniversary of the powerful earthquake and tsunami that killed over 23,000 and triggered one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.

Streets in parts of Tokyo were completely jammed with thousands of chanting protesters, paralyzing sections of the city. Some marchers called for the country's nuclear plants to be shut down immediately and for stricter radiation tests by the government.

The magnitude-9 earthquake that hit March 11 off Japan's northeast coast caused a massive tsunami that devastated the coastline. The disasters knocked out power and cooling systems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, about 140 miles (225 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, setting off explosions, fires and large radiation leaks at the facility.

Government reports released earlier in the week said the damage and leakage were worse than previously thought, with some of the nuclear fuel in three reactors likely having melted through the main cores and inner containment vessels. They said the radiation that leaked into the air amounted to about one-sixth of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 — double previous estimates...


Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Anti-nuke-protests-in-Japan-3-months-after-quake-1418439.php#ixzz1OzB49fsD



BEHIND THE MYTH: Japan turned deaf ear to warnings about quake risks.

BY RINTARO SAKURAI STAFF WRITER
2011/06/11

The moment seismologist Kojiro Irikura felt a massive shaking in Tokyo's Kasumigaseki district on March 11, he wondered whether a nuclear power plant somewhere might have been damaged. But deep down, he may have already known the answer...

...Irikura, who has chaired the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan's Investigatory Advisory Board on Assessment of Seismic Safety since 2007, believes that warnings about earthquake risks to nuclear power plants were not taken seriously for many years...

...Irikura argued that hidden active faults near the facility should be taken into account. But his calls fell on deaf ears, and he was not invited to the screening process after several sessions...

...But nuclear researchers told him that nuclear power plants are equipped with safety measures other than those for earthquakes and that damage can be prevented even if an earthquake is a little stronger than expected. Irikura said he did not feel that they were paying serious attention to potential risks...

http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201106100215.html



Thieves target Japan's abandoned nuclear zone

By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy
Posted Sat Jun 11, 2011 1:51pm AEST

Japanese police say burglars are targeting vacant homes inside the no-go zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.

A special force has now been set up to patrol the abandoned areas.

Japan's Yomiuri newspaper is reporting that since the beginning of last month there have been 42 burglaries inside the 20-kilometre evacuation zone.

It says thieves usually smashed through glass doors and took cash, jewellery and Buddha statues.

Authorities have now set up a special force of 300 police to patrol the abandoned areas. Overall, serious and violent crime has decreased in Fukushima since the nuclear crisis.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/06/11/3241628.htm



Saturday, June 11, 2011

Ex-adviser slams Kan, NSC for locals' exposure
Kyodo

A report by a former government adviser on the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant criticizes the government for exacerbating the radiation exposure of nearby residents due to what he called its disjointed initial handling of the crisis.

Toshiso Kosako, a professor of radiation safety at the University of Tokyo, wrote in the report submitted to Prime Minister Naoto Kan just before he stepped down as adviser in late April that the government failed to make efficient use of forecasts on the spread of radioactive substances from the Fukushima plant.

In criticizing the government's impromptu handling of the crisis in its early stages, Kosako cited a lack of leadership at the prime minister's office and the Nuclear Safety Commission's uncooperative attitude toward Kosako's team.

He wrote that the government delayed the release of forecasts on the spread of radiation from the plant compiled by the Nuclear Safety Technology Center's computer system, called the System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information (SPEEDI)...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110611x1.html




Saturday, June 11, 2011

Shizuoka tells tea retailer to conceal radiation info
KYODO

Shizuoka — Shizuoka Prefecture told a Tokyo-based mail order company not to say anything on its website about excessive radioactive material being found in tea from the prefecture, the retailer said Friday.

After Radishbo-ya Co. made an inquiry to the Shizuoka Prefectural Government about the matter Monday, a prefectural official told the company not to disclose the finding due to fears the message would cause unwarranted harm to Shizuoka tea growers, adding that the prefecture would confirm the finding on its own, according to the retailer.

Radishbo-ya, for its part, sent purchasers of the tea letters informing them about the radiation and offered to recall the products.

Shizuoka is a famous tea production area.

"The official (who talked with Radishbo-ya) apparently feared that any warning issued through its website could fan public anxiety," a prefectural official said,...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110611a3.html



NHK poll: 77% don't see progress in reconstruction

More than three quarters of the people responding to an NHK survey say rebuilding in areas hit by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami is not progressing smoothly 3 months after the disaster.

Asked whether reconstruction of their municipalities was going smoothly, 5 percent of the respondents said yes and 15 percent to some extent.

But 29 percent said they haven't seen much progress and 48 percent no progress...

...Speedy recovery topped the list at 38 percent. 30 percent said they expect their governments to accept residents' suggestions. Another 30 percent said they want their communities to be restored to the state before the disaster. 28 percent said they expect safety issues to be a priority...

Saturday, June 11, 2011 09:35 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/11_08.html



More than 90,000 still in evacuation centers

Three months after the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, more than 90,000 people in Japan are still living in evacuation centers.

The government plans to build a total of 52,000 temporary homes for the evacuees, but only about 28,000 have been completed.

Many evacuees have declined to move into the temporary housing, citing insufficient support services compared to those at shelters.

One of the reasons for the slow progress has been the massive amount of debris that needs to be cleared in the disaster-hit prefectures. Debris removal has not even begun in the evacuation zones near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant...

Saturday, June 11, 2011 07:57 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/11_04.html



Many challenges at Fukushima Daiichi nuke plant

Three months after the breakdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, there is still a huge number of obstacles to getting the plant under control.

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, has revealed that fuel meltdowns are likely to have occurred in reactors Number 1, 2, and 3.

TEPCO is cooling the reactors and trying to contain radioactive leakage. It has installed a circulatory cooling system for the spent nuclear fuel pool at reactor No. 2.

But highly radioactive water continues to accumulate in the turbine buildings and underground tunnels because TEPCO is injecting water into the reactors to cool them...

Saturday, June 11, 2011 07:57 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/11_03.html



Friday, June 10, 2011

Widen evacuation zone for children, pregnant women: Greenpeace chief

By JUN HONGO
Staff writer


The government should consider evacuating children and pregnant women from a wider area around the Fukushima No. 1 power plant because radiation levels remain high even outside the 20-km no-go zone, Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International, said Thursday in Tokyo.

Naidoo's team of radiology experts found hot spots that had a maximum hourly reading of 45 microsieverts of radiation alongside a school zone.

While the area likely had high levels of radiation as a result of the landscape or other natural conditions, Naidoo insisted the central government should conduct thorough checks and provide accurate and fast information to local residents.

"Enough lives have been lost already" due to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and it is not justifiable for the government to neglect the health risks of high radiation in Fukushima, he told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/nn20110610a6.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+japantimes_news+%28The+Japan+Times+Headline+News+-+News+%26+Business%29



A 35% Spike in Infant Mortality in Northwest Cities Since Meltdown
Is the Dramatic Increase in Baby Deaths in the US a Result of Fukushima Fallout?
By JANETTE D. SHERMAN, MD
and JOSEPH MANGANO

U.S. babies are dying at an increased rate. While the United States spends billions on medical care, as of 2006, the US ranked 28th in the world in infant mortality, more than twice that of the lowest ranked countries. (DHHS, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics. Health United States 2010, Table 20, p. 131, February 2011.)

The recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicates that eight cities in the northwest U.S. (Boise ID, Seattle WA, Portland OR, plus the northern California cities of Santa Cruz, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and Berkeley) reported the following data on deaths among those younger than one year of age:

4 weeks ending March 19, 2011 - 37 deaths (avg. 9.25 per week)
10 weeks ending May 28, 2011 - 125 deaths (avg.12.50 per week)

This amounts to an increase of 35% (the total for the entire U.S. rose about 2.3%), and is statistically significant. Of further significance is that those dates include the four weeks before and the ten weeks after the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In 2001 the infant mortality was 6.834 per 1000 live births, increasing to 6.845 in 2007. All years from 2002 to 2007 were higher than the 2001 rate.

Spewing from the Fukushima reactor are radioactive isotopes including those of iodine (I-131), strontium (Sr-90) and cesium (Cs-134 and Cs-137) all of which are taken up in food and water. Iodine is concentrated in the thyroid, Sr-90 in bones and teeth and Cs-134 and Cs-137 in soft tissues, including the heart. The unborn and babies are more vulnerable because the cells are rapidly dividing and the delivered dose is proportionally larger than that delivered to an adult...

http://www.counterpunch.org/sherman06102011.html



"...Me, I'm waiting so patiently
Lying on the floor
I'm just trying to do my jig-saw puzzle
Before it rains anymore..."

Jagger/Richard