Fukushima: Radiation leaked from an unstable Japanese nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, the government said, after an explosion blew the roof off the facility in the wake of a massive earthquake.
The developments raised fears of a disastrous meltdown at the plant, which was damaged by Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan.
"We are looking into the cause and the situation and we'll make that public when we have further information," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
Edano said an evacuation radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the stricken 40-year-old Daiichi 1 reactor plant in Fukushima prefecture was adequate. TV footage showed vapour rising from the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.
The quake sent a 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.
The blast came as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) worked desperately to reduce pressures in the core of the reactor.
"An unchecked rise in temperature could cause the core to essentially turn into a molten mass that could burn through the reactor vessel," risk information service Stratfor said in a report before the explosion. "This may lead to a release of an unchecked amount of radiation into the containment building that surrounds the reactor."
NHK television and Jiji said the outer structure of the building that houses the reactor appeared to have blown off, which could suggest the containment building had already been breached.
Earlier, the operator released what it said was a tiny amount of radioactive steam to reduce the pressure and the danger was minimal because tens of thousands of people had already been evacuated from the vicinity.
Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said the earth's axis shifted 25 cm as a result of the quake and the US Geological Survey said the main island of Japan had shifted 2.4 meters.
Rescue operation on
Meanwhile, Japan launched a massive, military-led rescue operation after a giant quake and tsunami killed hundreds of people and turned the northeastern coast into a swampy wasteland.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said he is sending 50,000 troops for the rescue and recovery efforts following Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake that unleashed one of the greatest disasters Japan has witnessed.
The official death toll stood at 413, while 784 people were missing and 1,128 injured. Media reports say the toll it is at least 1,600. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicentre. An untold number of bodies were also believed to be lying in the rubble and debris. Rescue workers had yet to reach the hardest-hit areas.
Devastation
The atomic emergency came as the country struggled to assess the full extent of the devastation wreaked by the massive tsunami, which was unleashed by the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan off the eastern coast.
More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, or states, the national police agency said. Since the quake, more than one million households have not had water, mostly concentrated in northeast.
The full scale of those left homeless was believed to be much higher, with police saying they had not received a tally from Miyagi prefecture, the hard-hit province that is home to Sendai.
Kan said a total of 190 military planes and 25 ships have been sent to the area.
"Most of houses along the coastline were washed away, and fire broke out there," he said after inspecting the quake area in a helicopter. "I realised the extremely serious damage the tsunami caused."
The unstoppable black tide picked up shipping containers, wrecked cars and the debris of shattered homes and crashed through the streets of Sendai and across open fields, forming a mud slick that covered swathes of land.
The tsunami obliterated Rikuzentakata, a coastal city of some 23,000 people, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.
More than eight million homes lost power, mobile and landline phone systems broke down and gas was cut to more than 300,000 homes, meaning many Japanese could not heat their dark homes during a tense, cold night.
The military mobilised thousands of troops, 300 planes and 40 ships for the relief effort. An armada of 20 naval destroyers and other vessels headed for the devastated Pacific coast area of Honshu island.
Tsunami warning
Ports and beaches were temporarily shut and islanders and coastal residents ordered to higher ground up and down Latin America's Pacific seaboard before the tsunami surge triggered by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan. But it did little damage.
By the time the tsunami waves travelled across the wide Pacific Ocean and into the southern hemisphere, only slightly higher waters than normal came ashore in Mexico, Honduras and Colombia, Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, Chile's Easter Island and Peru and Chile's mainlands.
Waves as high as 6 feet (almost 2 meters) crashed into South America into early Saturday - in some cases sending the Pacific surging into streets — after coastal dwellers rushed to close ports and schools and evacuated several hundred thousand people.
Aftershocks
Nearly 24 hours after the first, massive quake struck just under 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Tokyo, aftershocks were still rattling the region, including a strong 6.8 magnitude tremor on Saturday.
The US Geological Survey said more than 100 aftershocks had hit the area.
Japan sits on the "Pacific Ring of Fire" and Tokyo is in one of its most dangerous areas, where three continental plates are slowly grinding against each other, building up enormous seismic pressure.
The government has long warned of the likelihood that a devastating magnitude-8 quake will strike within the next 30 years in the Kanto plains, home to Tokyo's vast urban sprawl.
The disaster struck as the world's third-largest economy had been showing signs of reviving from an economic contraction in the final quarter of last year. It raised the prospect of major disruptions for many key businesses and a massive repair bill running into tens of billions of dollars.
The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. It surpassed the Great Kanto quake of September 10, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area.
The 1995 Kobe quake caused USD 100 billion in damage and was the most expensive natural disaster in history.
Bureau Report
Fukushima: Radiation leaked from an unstable Japanese nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, the government said, after an explosion blew the roof off the facility in the wake of a massive earthquake.
The developments raised fears of a disastrous meltdown at the plant, which was damaged by Friday's 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan.
"We are looking into the cause and the situation and we'll make that public when we have further information," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
Edano said an evacuation radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the stricken 40-year-old Daiichi 1 reactor plant in Fukushima prefecture was adequate. TV footage showed vapour rising from the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.
The quake sent a 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.
The blast came as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) worked desperately to reduce pressures in the core of the reactor.
"An unchecked rise in temperature could cause the core to essentially turn into a molten mass that could burn through the reactor vessel," risk information service Stratfor said in a report before the explosion. "This may lead to a release of an unchecked amount of radiation into the containment building that surrounds the reactor."
NHK television and Jiji said the outer structure of the building that houses the reactor appeared to have blown off, which could suggest the containment building had already been breached.
Earlier, the operator released what it said was a tiny amount of radioactive steam to reduce the pressure and the danger was minimal because tens of thousands of people had already been evacuated from the vicinity.
Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said the earth's axis shifted 25 cm as a result of the quake and the US Geological Survey said the main island of Japan had shifted 2.4 meters.
Rescue operation on
Meanwhile, Japan launched a massive, military-led rescue operation after a giant quake and tsunami killed hundreds of people and turned the northeastern coast into a swampy wasteland.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said he is sending 50,000 troops for the rescue and recovery efforts following Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake that unleashed one of the greatest disasters Japan has witnessed.
The official death toll stood at 413, while 784 people were missing and 1,128 injured. Media reports say the toll it is at least 1,600. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicentre. An untold number of bodies were also believed to be lying in the rubble and debris. Rescue workers had yet to reach the hardest-hit areas.
Devastation
The atomic emergency came as the country struggled to assess the full extent of the devastation wreaked by the massive tsunami, which was unleashed by the strongest quake ever recorded in Japan off the eastern coast.
More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, or states, the national police agency said. Since the quake, more than one million households have not had water, mostly concentrated in northeast.
The full scale of those left homeless was believed to be much higher, with police saying they had not received a tally from Miyagi prefecture, the hard-hit province that is home to Sendai.
Kan said a total of 190 military planes and 25 ships have been sent to the area.
"Most of houses along the coastline were washed away, and fire broke out there," he said after inspecting the quake area in a helicopter. "I realised the extremely serious damage the tsunami caused."
The unstoppable black tide picked up shipping containers, wrecked cars and the debris of shattered homes and crashed through the streets of Sendai and across open fields, forming a mud slick that covered swathes of land.
The tsunami obliterated Rikuzentakata, a coastal city of some 23,000 people, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency said.
More than eight million homes lost power, mobile and landline phone systems broke down and gas was cut to more than 300,000 homes, meaning many Japanese could not heat their dark homes during a tense, cold night.
The military mobilised thousands of troops, 300 planes and 40 ships for the relief effort. An armada of 20 naval destroyers and other vessels headed for the devastated Pacific coast area of Honshu island.
Tsunami warning
Ports and beaches were temporarily shut and islanders and coastal residents ordered to higher ground up and down Latin America's Pacific seaboard before the tsunami surge triggered by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan. But it did little damage.
By the time the tsunami waves travelled across the wide Pacific Ocean and into the southern hemisphere, only slightly higher waters than normal came ashore in Mexico, Honduras and Colombia, Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, Chile's Easter Island and Peru and Chile's mainlands.
Waves as high as 6 feet (almost 2 meters) crashed into South America into early Saturday - in some cases sending the Pacific surging into streets — after coastal dwellers rushed to close ports and schools and evacuated several hundred thousand people.
Aftershocks
Nearly 24 hours after the first, massive quake struck just under 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Tokyo, aftershocks were still rattling the region, including a strong 6.8 magnitude tremor on Saturday.
The US Geological Survey said more than 100 aftershocks had hit the area.
Japan sits on the "Pacific Ring of Fire" and Tokyo is in one of its most dangerous areas, where three continental plates are slowly grinding against each other, building up enormous seismic pressure.
The government has long warned of the likelihood that a devastating magnitude-8 quake will strike within the next 30 years in the Kanto plains, home to Tokyo's vast urban sprawl.
The disaster struck as the world's third-largest economy had been showing signs of reviving from an economic contraction in the final quarter of last year. It raised the prospect of major disruptions for many key businesses and a massive repair bill running into tens of billions of dollars.
The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. It surpassed the Great Kanto quake of September 10, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area.
The 1995 Kobe quake caused USD 100 billion in damage and was the most expensive natural disaster in history.
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