Japan Crisis Much Worse than Three Mile Island

A German geophysicist created this nifty graphic that shows the seismic activity off the coast of Japan since March 9, the day a 7.2 quake occurred off the coast of Japan. The morning of March 11 shows the massive quake and its aftershocks, and then the seismic activity slowly subsides. But all in all, the region has suffered 428 earthquakes since March 9, even though many were too far or too small to be felt on land. And here's one more video, via Gawker, that shows the extent of the destruction of the tsunami in coastal Miyako City.

With Aid Slow to Come Japanese Fend for Themselves

March 18, 2011

AP – There may be no water, no power and no cell phone reception in this tsunami-struck town, but in the school that serves as a shelter, there are sizzling pans of fat, pink shrimp.

Relief supplies have only trickled into the long strip of northeast Japan demolished by a powerful earthquake and the wave it unleashed a week ago, leaving affected communities to fend for themselves.

Many have risen to the occasion.

No water for the toilets? No problem. Students in Karakuwa bring buckets of water from the school swimming pool to give survivors the dignity of a proper flush. In the kitchen, a giant rice cooker given to the school by a resident sits on a table, steam rising from the heaping mounds of rice inside.

"For a long time, in the countryside, even if you didn't have enough for yourself, you shared with others," said Noriko Sasaki, 63, as she sat on the ground outside another relief center in the town. "That is our culture. Even if they're not relatives, we feel as if they're sisters or brothers."

There are hardships -- a junior high hardly offers the comforts of home -- and while the sense of community runs all along the coast, not all survivors are as well off.

Blustery snow, fuel shortages and widespread damage to airports, roads and rails have hampered delivery of badly needed assistance to more than 450,000 homeless trying to stay fed and warm, often without electricity and running water in shelters cobbled together in schools and other public buildings.

More than 6,900 people are confirmed dead so far and another 10,700 are missing. The disaster also damaged a seaside nuclear power plant, which remains in crisis as workers struggle under dangerous conditions to prevent a meltdown and major radiation leaks.

In the flattened hamlet of Shizugawa, Koji Sato, a carpenter who usually builds homes, is making coffins.

He said he hasn't had time to really think about the hardship he's faced.

"All I have been doing is making coffins."

In Hirota, helicopters have delivered some food, but not much. So far, the survivors have instant noodles, fruit and bread. Water comes from wells and mountain rivers. Companies and residents unaffected by the disaster have donated bedding and blankets.

Kouetsu Sasaki, a 60-year-old city hall worker, said they still need gas, vegetables, socks, underwear, wet wipes and anti-bacterial lotion. There is some medicine, but not enough.

"People here aren't angry or frustrated yet. ... But it's a big question mark whether we can keep living like this for weeks or months," said Sasaki, who is not related to Noriko. "I try to concentrate on what I need to do this morning, this day, and not think about how long it might last."

With roads and airport runways being cleared of debris, aid workers hope to ramp up relief soon.

Helicopters operating from two U.S. aircraft carriers off the coast of Japan are already ferrying in supplies.

Two American helicopters touched down on a hilltop above Shizugawa on Friday with boxes of canned beans and powdered milk for a community center that has become a shelter for those who lost their homes.

But snow has limited helicopter flights, and American aircraft are also under orders to skirt the area around the nuclear plant to reduce the risk of radiation exposure.

The region can expect some relief in about 24 hours in the way of warmer weather replacing bitter cold and snow, said Herbert Puempel of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization in Geneva. He said temperatures should climb enough to "take a little pressure off the people who are not housed."

"It's frustrating," said U.S. Navy rescue swimmer Jeff Pearson, 25, of Amarillo, Texas. "But we're doing all we can do. I think we are going to be able to get much more involved very soon."

His helicopter crew, based on the southern island of Okinawa, was heading farther north from Japan's Jinmachi Air Base in Yamagata city.

A 24-vehicle U.S. Marines convoy reached the base Friday, where the Marines will run a refueling hub, move supplies by road and provide communications support.

Also Friday, the airport in Sendai, the city closest to the epicenter, was declared ready to receive aid deliveries on jumbo C-130 and C-17 military transport planes. The tsunami had flooded the tarmac, piling up small planes and cars and leaving behind a layer of muck and debris.

At the school in Karakuwa, 43-year-old Emi Yoshida reads a book, still wearing the same clothes she had on the day the tsunami roared into town. She has not showered in a week and longs for a bed. Still, she is grateful for the comfort the community has provided her and her two sons.

Nearby, 62-year-old Yoko Komatsu and her 88-year-old father-in-law Tetsuo Komatsu sit in a patch of sunlight streaming in through the giant classroom windows, warming themselves next to an oil-powered heater.

Yoko feels trapped by the one thing the volunteers cannot give her: a way to communicate with the outside world. She has no idea if her relatives, who live in other hard-hit coastal towns, are alive.

"I want to go there to check on them," she said. "Even if I go, I can't come back, so I can't move. What I want most is gas."

In the kitchen, teachers, mothers of students and the newly homeless whip up three meals and two snacks a day.

The women mix together squid, shrimp and stir-fried vegetables in large pots, turning it into a nourishing stew that they ladle onto bowls of rice. They're delivered with slices of apples throughout the building.

In the middle of one classroom, a group of boys plunk themselves in seats around a table, the bowls of stew sending plumes of steam into the air. In unison, they bow their heads.

"Thank you," they say. "For everything."

Then, their chilled hands armed with chopsticks, they gobble their dinner down.

Japan Crisis is Much Worse than Three Mile Island

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that no amount of radiation is absolutely safe above the 3 to 6 millisieverts a year that most of us get from normal living. In contrast, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that low doses — less than 100 millisieverts spread out over years — are not harmful. Researchers have not documented danger from such low levels, said Kelly Classic, a radiation physicist at the Mayo Clinic and a spokeswoman for the Health Physics Society, an organization of radiation safety specialists. High doses — over 500 millisieverts — can raise the risk of leukemia, breast, bladder, colon, liver, lung, esophageal, ovarian and stomach cancers, and the blood cancer multiple myeloma, government scientists say. In between the high and lower levels, the picture is murky. Much depends on the type of radiation people are exposed to, how old they are, and how well each person's body repairs any DNA damage the radiation may cause. - Scientists lack complete answers on radiation risk, The Associated Press, March 18, 2011

March 18, 2011

Reuters – The man who became the face of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in 1979 says he had it easy compared to those trying to regain control of Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant this week.

Harold Denton, a senior official with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the time, was picked by then-President Jimmy Carter to take charge at the Pennsylvania plant as operators were working to regain control of a reactor going into partial meltdown.

He quickly became the face of the Three Mile Island crisis, holding daily news conferences and making regular appearances at the press center set up at the plant, located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The incident terrified Americans and set back nuclear power plant developments in the United States for 30 years. Even so, Denton said conditions at the plant were far better than those at the plant at the center of the current crisis in Japan.

"This is certainly far worse than Three Mile Island," Denton said in a phone interview.

The Three Mile accident was a case of a valve malfunction compounded by human error, while Daiichi was the result a massive earthquake and tsunami. Possible missteps and what some nuclear engineers say are design faults may have compounded the situation.

To be sure, GE says the design used at Daiichi has performed well for over 40 years and meets all regulatory requirements. The design has no faults, it says.

What's certain is a series of blasts wrecked parts of the Daiichi plant, while Three Mile remained fully intact.

"In Japan, it's clearly the problem caused by the double whammy of having an earthquake and then the tsunami," said Denton.

Now 75 and retired in Knoxville, Tennessee, Denton reels off the other differences:

--At Three Mile Island there were no injuries and only minor amounts of radiation released into the atmosphere. At Daiichi, at least two workers are missing and many other workers are risking heavy doses of radiation.

--There was only one troubled reactor at Three Mile; in Daiichi there are six.

--His team could work close to the reactor. In Japan it may well be too dangerous to do so because of high levels of radiation.

--The power was working at Three Mile. In Japan, it was knocked out by the earthquake and tsunami.

"Power is the lifeblood for a power plant," Denton said. "If you've got power you can do a lot, but if you don't have any power, the water in the reactor vessels heats up and boils away and fuel begins to melt and that's a problem they've gotten into now."

NO PHONES

In Three Mile Island, "there was no interruption of infrastructure. The biggest problem was the telephone communications because there was such an overload of the system."

In fact, poor communications was one of the biggest headaches at Three Mile Island.

There were no mobile phones in 1979, so Carter ordered a hot line with a drop cord to Denton's work trailer, allowing Denton to provide the President with regular updates.

"I called the president twice a day using the red telephone," Denton said.

"At the time, the computers were not as fast and didn't have the storage that they do now," said Denton. "The data flow at Three Mile Island exceeded the capacity of the printer to print the data."

Using computer printouts was the only way for Denton and his team to get a proper readout from the big and bulky computers in the power plant -- but having a printer go "clickity-click" as it slowly rolled over wasn't very helpful in such a new kind of crisis.

EVERYONE'S A CRITIC

Having coped with such events himself, Denton declined to join those piling on to criticize the Japanese plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO).

"I'm reluctant to criticize other people. During Three Mile Island, there were always pundits from a thousand miles away saying what we should be doing, and it used to upset me that the farther away people were from the site, the more authoritatively they came across."

Still, he did say that a freer flow of information would have helped as scientists outside the plant could have offered more assistance. Clearly those on the site had gotten too busy fighting fires, he said.

The extent of the damage at the two plants is clearly one of the most noticeable differences.

Three Mile Island suffered no structural damage. Operators didn't even know for two days after a hydrogen explosion in the primary containment on Wednesday, March 28, 1979, that a blast had even occurred.

They "realized they had heard a thud ... the day of the accident," he said. "They attributed it to a valve closing, not unlike other occasional noises in a power plant. By Friday, they realized they had heard an explosion the result of a hydrogen explosion," he said.

By contrast, the Daiichi reactor suffered numerous hydrogen explosions that partially destroyed the roof and walls, cracked the primary containment vessels on at least two of its six reactors, and damaged pools holding spent fuel.

THE LONG RETURN

A year after the accident, Denton went inside the reactor containment vessel after it had been vented.

"There was surprisingly little damage from the hydrogen explosion visible on the operating floor of the plant," he said. "The things that were visible were a telephone in that area seemed to have some melting on the plastic cover and perhaps a barrel that had caved in a little but it wasn't the scene of destruction by any means."

One of the biggest signs of how the Japanese crisis is so much worse than the U.S. incident 32 years ago is that Denton was able to take President Carter on a tour of the plant's control room on the fourth and final day of the Three Mile Island accident.

It is doubtful whether it will ever be safe for Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan to go to Daiichi.

Indeed, Japanese engineers conceded on Friday they may have to bury the plant in sand and concrete as a last resort to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986.

Japan Lays Power Cable in Race to Stop Radiation

March 18, 2011

Reuters – Exhausted engineers attached a power cable to the outside of Japan's tsunami-crippled nuclear plant on Saturday in a race to prevent deadly radiation from an accident now rated at least as bad as America's Three Mile Island incident in 1979.

Further cabling inside was under way before an attempt to restart water pumps needed to cool overheated nuclear fuel rods at the six-reactor Fukushima plant in northeastern Japan, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Japan's unprecedented multiple crisis of earthquake, tsunami and radiation leak has unsettled world financial markets, prompted international reassessment of nuclear safety and given the Asian nation its sternest test since World War Two.

It has also stirred unhappy memories of Japan's past nuclear nightmare -- the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Working inside a 20 km (12 miles) evacuation zone at Fukushima, nearly 300 engineers were focused on trying to find a solution by restoring power to pumps in four of the reactors.

"TEPCO has connected the external transmission line with the receiving point of the plant and confirmed that electricity can be supplied," the plant's operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said in a statement.

Another 1,480 meters (5,000 feet) of cable are being laid inside the complex before engineers try to crank up the coolers at reactor No.2, followed by numbers 1, 3 and 4 this weekend, company officials said.

If that works it will be a turning point.

"If they are successful in getting the cooling infrastructure up and running, that will be a significant step forward in establishing stability," said Eric Moore, a nuclear power expert at U.S.-based FocalPoint Consulting Group.

If not, there is an option of last resort under consideration to bury the sprawling 40-year-old plant in sand and concrete to prevent a catastrophic radiation release.

That method was used to seal huge leakages from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Underlining authorities' desperation, fire trucks sprayed water overnight in a crude tactic to cool reactor No.3, considered the most critical because of its use of mixed oxides, or mox, containing both uranium and highly toxic plutonium.

Japan has raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis to level 5 from 4 on the seven-level INES international scale, putting it on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, although some experts say it is more serious.

Chernobyl, in Ukraine, was a 7 on that scale.

THOUSANDS DEAD, MISSING AND SUFFERING

The operation to avert large-scale radiation has overshadowed the humanitarian aftermath of the 9.0-magnitude quake and 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami that struck on March 11.

Nearly 7,000 people have been confirmed killed in the double natural disaster, which turned whole towns into waterlogged and debris-shrouded wastelands.

Another 10,700 people are missing with many feared dead.

Some 390,000 people, including many among Japan's aging population, are homeless and battling near-freezing temperatures in shelters in northeastern coastal areas.

Food, water, medicine and heating fuel are in short supply.

"Everything is gone, including money," said Tsukasa Sato, a 74-year-old barber with a heart condition, as he warmed his hands in front of a stove at a shelter for the homeless.

Health officials and the U.N. atomic watchdog have said radiation levels in the capital Tokyo were not harmful. But the city has seen an exodus of tourists, expatriates and many Japanese, who fear a blast of radioactive material.

"I'm leaving because my parents are terrified. I personally think this will turn out to be the biggest paper tiger the world has ever seen," said Luke Ridley, 23, from London as he sat at Narita international airport using his laptop.

"I'll probably come back in about a month."

Though there has been alarm around the world, experts have been warning there is little risk of radiation at dangerous levels spreading to other nations.

The U.S. government said "minuscule" amounts of radiation were detected in California consistent with a release from Japan's damaged facility, but there were no levels of concern.

Amid their distress, Japanese were proud of the 279 nuclear plant workers toiling in the wreckage, wearing masks, goggles and protective suits sealed by duct tape.

"My eyes well with tears at the thought of the work they are doing," Kazuya Aoki, a safety official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told Reuters.

G7 INTERVENTION FOR YEN

The Group of Seven rich nations succeeded in calming global financial markets in rare concerted intervention to restrain a soaring yen.

The dollar surged to 81.98 yen on Friday after the G7 moved to pour billions into markets buying dollars, euros and pounds -- the first such joint intervention since the group came to the aid of the newly launched euro in 2000.

The dollar later dropped back to under 81 yen, but it was still far from the record low of 76.25 yen hit on Thursday.

"The only type of intervention that actually works is coordinated intervention, and it shows the solidarity of all central banks in terms of the severity of the situation in Japan," said Kathy Lien, director of currency research at GFT in New York.

Japan's Nikkei share index ended up 2.7 percent, recouping some of the week's stinging losses. It lost 10.2 percent for the week, wiping $350 billion off market capitalization.

The plight of the homeless worsened following a cold snap that brought heavy snow to the worst-affected areas.

Nearly 290,000 households in the north were still without electricity, officials said, and the government said about 940,000 households lacked running water.

Aid groups say most victims are getting help, but there are pockets of acute suffering.

"We've seen children suffering with the cold, and lacking really basic items like food and clean water," Stephen McDonald of Save the Children said in a statement on Friday.