No radioactive releases in any of Japan's nuclear power plants after quake

Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant

As Japan is one of the most seismically active nations in the world, it has strict sets of regulations designed to limit the impact of quakes on nuclear power plants. These standards call for constructing plants on solid bedrock to reduce shaking.

Even so, 10 of Japan's 54 commercial reactors were shut down because of the quake, and Tokyo Electric Power said it had to reduce power generation. Japan gets about 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear power.

5 Japan's Nuke Reactors are in Emergencies after Quake

Japan declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability in the aftermath of Friday's powerful earthquake. Thousands of residents were evacuated as workers struggled to get the reactors under control to prevent meltdowns.

Operators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant's Unit 1 scrambled ferociously to tamp down heat and pressure inside the reactor after the 8.9 magnitude quake and the tsunami that followed cut off electricity to the site and disabled emergency generators, knocking out the main cooling system.

Some 3,000 people within two miles (three kilometers) of the plant were urged to leave their homes, but the evacuation zone was more than tripled to 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) after authorities detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.

The government declared a state of emergency at the Daiichi unit — the first at a nuclear plant in Japan's history. But hours later, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the six-reactor Daiichi site in northeastern Japan, announced that it had lost cooling ability at a second reactor there and three units at its nearby Fukushima Daini site.

The government quickly declared states of emergency for those units, too. Nearly 14,000 people living near the two power plants were ordered to evacuate.

Japan's nuclear safety agency said the situation was most dire at Fukushima Daiichi's Unit 1, where pressure had risen to twice what is consider the normal level. The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement that diesel generators that normally would have kept cooling systems running at Fukushima Daiichi had been disabled by tsunami flooding.

Officials at the Daiichi facility began venting radioactive vapors from the unit to relieve pressure inside the reactor case. The loss of electricity had delayed that effort for several hours.

Plant workers there labored to cool down the reactor core, but there was no prospect for immediate success. They were temporarily cooling the reactor with a secondary system, but it wasn't working as well as the primary one, according to Yuji Kakizaki, an official at the Japanese nuclear safety agency.

Even once a reactor is shut down, radioactive byproducts give off heat that can ultimately produce volatile hydrogen gas, melt radioactive fuel, or even breach the containment building in a full meltdown belching radioactivity into the surroundings, according to technical and government authorities.

Despite plans for the intentional release of radioactivity, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the 40-year-old plant was not leaking radiation.

"With evacuation in place and the ocean-bound wind, we can ensure the safety," Edano said at a televised news conference early Saturday.

It was unclear if the elevation of radioactivity around the reactor was known at the time he spoke.

The outside measurement of radiation at Daiichi was far below the allowed limit for a year, other officials said, reporting that it would take 70 days standing at the gate to reach the yearly limit.

Dr. Irwin Redlener, a pediatrician who runs a disaster preparedness institute at Columbia University, said the reported level of radiation outside the plant would not pose an immediate danger, though it could lift the rate of thyroid cancer in a population over time.

However, he called the reported level inside the plant extraordinarily high, raising a concern about acute health effects. "I would personally absolutely not want to be inside," he said.

While the condition of the reactor cores was of utmost concern, Tokyo Electric Power Co. also warned of power shortages and an "extremely challenging situation in power supply for a while."

The Daiichi site is located in Onahama city, about 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. The 460-megawatt Unit 1 began operating in 1971 and is the oldest at the site. It is a boiling water reactor that drives the turbine with radioactive water, unlike pressurized water reactors usually found in the United States. Japanese regulators decided in February to allow it to run another 10 years.

The temperature inside the reactor wasn't reported, but Japanese regulators said it wasn't dropping as quickly as they wanted.

Kakizaki, the safety agency official, said the emergency cooling system is intact and could kick in as a last line of defense. "That's as a last resort, and we have not reached that stage yet," he added.

Defense Ministry official Ippo Maeyama said dozens of troops trained for chemical disasters had been dispatched to the plant in case of a radiation leak, along with four vehicles designed for use in atomic, biological and chemical warfare.

Technical experts said the plant would presumably have hours, but probably not days, to try to stabilize things.

Leonard S. Spector, director of the Washington office of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, said loss of coolant is the most serious type of accident at a nuclear power plant.

"They are busy trying to get coolant to the core area," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "The big thing is trying to get power to the cooling systems."

High-pressure pumps can temporarily cool a reactor in this state with battery power, even when electricity is down, according to Arnold Gundersen, a nuclear engineer who used to work in the U.S. nuclear industry. They can open and close relief valves needed to control pressure. Batteries would go dead within hours but could be replaced.

The IAEA said "mobile electricity supplies" had arrived at the Daiichi plant. It wasn't clear if they were generators or batteries.

It also was not immediately clear how closely the reactor had moved toward dangerous pressure or temperature levels. If temperatures were to keep rising to more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, it could set off a chemical reaction that begins to embrittle the metallic zirconium that sheathes the radioactive uranium fuel.

That reaction releases hydrogen, which can explode when cooling water finally floods back into the reactor. That was also concern for a time during the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania.

If the reactor temperature keeps reaches around 4,000 degrees, the fuel could melt outright, and the reactor could slump right into the bottom of the containment building in a partial meltdown. Then the crucial question would be whether the building would stay intact.

"The last line of defense is that containment — and that's got to hold," Gundersen said. If it doesn't, the radioactive load inside the reactor can pour out into the surroundings.

The plant is just south of the Miyagi prefecture, which was the region hardest hit by the quake. A fire broke out at another nuclear plant in that area in a turbine building at one of the Onagawa power reactors. Smoke poured from the building, but the fire was put out. Turbine buildings of such boiling water reactors, though separate from the reactor, do contain radioactive water, but at much lower levels than inside the reactor. A water leak was reported in another Onagawa reactor.

Japan's Tsunami reached Hawaii and the U.S. western coast

Tsunami waves spawned by a devastating earthquake in Japan battered Hawaii and the U.S. western coast Friday, flooding businesses, smashing dozens of boats at harbors and sweeping a man to his death.

Sirens sounded for hours before dawn along the West Coast and roadways and beaches were mostly empty as the tsunami struck. By midmorning, waves were crashing against the 30-foot bluffs in Crescent City, Calif.

A 25-year-old man was swept into the Pacific Ocean near the Klamath River in Del Norte County in Northern California. The man and two friends reportedly traveled to the shoreline to take photos of the incoming tsunami waves, Lt. Todd Vorenkamp said. His friends made it back to shore safely.

The missing man was presumed dead and his body has not been located, said Joey Young, spokesman for the Del Norte County emergency operations center in Crescent City.

Surging water knocked dozens of boats from their docks, both in Crescent City and on California's central coast in Santa Cruz, where loose fishing vessels crashed into one another and chunks of wooden docks broke off.

"This is just devastating. I never thought I'd see this again," said Ted Scott, a retired mill worker who lived in Crescent City when a 1964 tsunami killed 17 people on the West Coast, including 11 in his town. "I watched the docks bust apart. It buckled like a graham cracker."

Young said about 30 boats were damaged at the harbor in Crescent City.

The waves didn't make it over a 20-foot break wall protecting the rest of the city, and no home damage was immediately reported.

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In southern Oregon, the harbor at Brookings, near the California border, was extensively damaged. Several vessels were sunk, half a dozen others were swept to sea and much of the commercial part of the basin was destroyed, Curry County Sheriff John Bishop said. Damages will run in the millions of dollars, he said.

One man with a history of heart problems was found dead aboard a commercial vessel in Brookings but it was unclear if the death was related to the tsunami.

Four people at a beach north of Brookings were swept into the sea. Two were able to get out of the water on their own, and two were rescued by law enforcement and fire officials, the sheriff's office said.

Officials in two coastal Washington state counties used an automated phone alert system, phoning residents on the coast and in low-lying areas and asking them to move to higher ground.

"We certainly don't want to cry wolf," said Sheriff Scott Johnson of Washington's Pacific County. "We just have to hope we're doing the right thing based on our information. We don't want to be wrong and have people hurt or killed."

Earlier in Hawaii, water rushed up on roadways and into hotel lobbies on the Big Island and low-lying areas in Maui were flooded as 7-foot waves crashed ashore.

Big Island Mayor Billy Kenoi's office said that "damaging waves" hit Kailua-Kona around 5:30 a.m., roughly two hours after the first surge was expected, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported. The waves caused relatively minor but widespread damage in the area, the paper said.

Businesses on Maui also reported flood damage and many roads were closed. Mayor Alan Arakawa said the island's 14 evacuation centers were filled, with as many as 500 people in some facilities, the Star-Advertiser reported.

Scientists warned that the first tsunami waves are not always the strongest, and officials said people in Hawaii and along the West Coast should watch for strong currents and heed calls for evacuations. Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie said the islands were "fortunate almost beyond words."

The tsunami, spawned by an 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan, slammed the eastern coast of Japan, sweeping away boats, cars, homes and people as widespread fires burned out of control. It raced across the Pacific at 500 mph — as fast as a jetliner — before hitting Hawaii and the West Coast.

It is the second time in a little over a year that Hawaii and the U.S. West coast faced the threat of a massive tsunami. A magnitude-8.8 earthquake in Chile spawned warnings on Feb. 27, 2010, but the waves were much smaller than predicted and did little damage.

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Scientists then acknowledged they overstated the threat but defended their actions, saying they took the proper steps and learned the lessons of the 2004 Indonesian tsunami that killed thousands of people who didn't get enough warning.

This time around, the warning went out within 10 minutes of the earthquake in Japan, said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist for the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu.

"We called this right. This evacuation was necessary," Fryer said. "There's absolutely no question, this was the right thing to do," he said.

Police went through the tourist mecca of Waikiki, warning of the approaching tsunami. Hotels moved tourists from lower floors to upper levels. Some tourists ended up spending the night in their cars.

Across the islands, people stocked up on bottled water, canned foods and toilet paper. Authorities opened buildings to people fleeing low-lying areas. Fishermen took their boats out to sea, away from harbors and marinas where the waves would be most intense.

As the sun rose, people breathed a sigh of relief.

"With everything that could have happened and did happen in Japan, we're just thankful that nothing else happened," said Sabrina Skiles, who along with her husband spent a sleepless night at his office in Maui. Their beachfront house was unscathed.

Kenoi, the Big Island's mayor, told KHNL-TV a home may have washed into the ocean but he was "confident" of no reports of loss of life. "There is damage but considering what could have happened we are thankful," he said.

About 70 percent of Hawaii's 1.4 million population resides in Honolulu, and as many as 100,000 tourists are in the city on any given day.

Honolulu resident Margaret Carlile told msnbc.com that the alarms woke her up. "All the sirens went off — there's one down by the ocean and one nearer," she said. "The alarms are going off every hour on the hour to alert people."

Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle said on KHNL that city and county employees were placed on administrative leave Friday and had been asked to stay home.

The warnings issued by the tsunami center covered an area stretching the entire western coast of the United States and Canada from the Mexican border to Chignik Bay in Alaska.

Many islands in the Pacific were evacuated, but officials later told residents to go home because the waves weren't as bad as expected.

In Guam, the waves broke two U.S. Navy submarines from their moorings, but tug boats corralled the subs and brought them back to their pier. No damage was reported to Navy ships in Hawaii.

In the Canadian pacific coast province of British Columbia, authorities evacuated marinas, beaches and other areas.

In Latin America, a wave of almost 2 feet hit the remote Easter Island territory. Flood-prone areas along the mainland coast had been evacuated and there were no immediate reports of damage. A magnitude 8.8 quake and ensuing tsunamis a year ago hammered towns, roads and industries and killed more than 500 people in central Chile.

In Ecuador, most of the residents of Galapagos Islands — and many of the islands' world-famous animals — were evacuated to higher ground

Mexico's state-run oil company Pemex evacuated 300 workers from its only oil port on the Pacific coast. Authorities closed ports along Mexico's western coast as a precautionary measure, although the first waves to hit land were smaller than expected.

The worst big wave to strike the U.S. was a 1946 tsunami caused by a magnitude of 8.1 earthquake near Unimak Islands, Alaska, that killed 165 people, mostly in Hawaii. In 1960, a magnitude 9.5 earthquake in southern Chile caused a tsunami that killed at least 1,716 people, including 61 people in Hilo. It also destroyed most of that city's downtown. On the U.S. mainland, a 1964 tsunami from a 9.2 magnitude earthquake in Prince William Sound, Alaska, struck Washington State, Oregon and California. It killed 128 people, including 11 in Crescent City, Calif.

81 Victims alive in the ship swept off by Japan's tsunami

A ship that was swept away by the tsunami on Japan's northeastern coast was found and all 81 aboard were airlifted to safety, the AFP news agency reported Friday, citing Japanese news reports.

A Japanese coast guard official had said a search was under way for the ship carrying dock workers that was swept away when a tsunami struck the northeastern coast.

The vessel was washed away from a shipbuilding site in Miyagi prefecture (state), the area most affected by a massive offshore earthquake on Friday. The quake triggered the tsunami.

Japanese naval and coast guard helicopters located the ship and rescued those on board, AFP said, citing the Jiji news agency.

Citing Miyagi police, Kyodo News had reported that 100 were on board.

Four trains running in a coastal area of Miyagi and Iwate prefectures remained unaccounted for after the tsunami hit.

It was not known how many people were aboard the trains.

Another train on the Senseki Line was found derailed near Nobiru Station after the quake. No information was available about the fate of the passengers and crew on the train.

Tsunami Following M8.9 Earthquake Hits Japan

Japanese television showed pictures of cars, boats and even buildings swept away by a giant wave after an 8.9 SR earthquake.

This disaster caused fires in some areas in the capital Tokyo and it is worried a number of people died.

Epicenter of the earthquake occurred about 400 kilometers from the capital city of Tokyo and at a depth of 35 kilometers. After that happened several strong aftershocks.

The quake occurred at 14:46 local time. Seismology experts say this is one of the strongest earthquake ever shook Japan.

Tsunami warning

Tsunami warning is now extended to the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Russia region on the Pacific coast and Hawaii.

Pacific tsunami warning center said the waves could reach the coast of Chile in South America.

According to reports there are 20 people injured in Tokyo after the hall roof collapsed when the graduation ceremony is in progress.

Residents and workers in the Tokyo office jump out of the building and gathered in open parks as aftershocks occur.

Many Tokyo residents say they have never felt this strong earthquake.

In central Tokyo, Jeffrey Balang said he was trapped in his office in Shiodome Sumitomo Building by elevators stopped working.

"There's no panic but it feels like seasickness as the building rocked continuously," he told the BBC.

Super-fast trains in northern Japan suspended, transportation in Tokyo was also halted and some nuclear power immediately closed.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said there was no radiation leak.

In a televised speech, he expressed his sympathy to victims of disaster.

He stressed that his government has set up a disaster prevention center.

Naoto Kan said the quake was magnitude 8.4 while the United States Geology Survey said the quake strength was 8.9 on the Richter scale.