According to the Kyodo news agency, Japan's nuclear agency has said that the water level has been dropping in the No 5 reactor as well:

The agency said it will closely monitor data on the reactor to prevent the problems that occurred at other reactors.

Japan's foreign ministry has asked foreign diplomats and government officials to remain calm and "accurately convey information provided by Japanese authorities concerning the plant", according to NHK television.

Japan earthquake | Page 100 | Liveblog live blogging | Reuters.com

Thompson and others were critical of the practice of discussing radiation levels at the microsievert level, which is 1/1000 of a millisievert, and a tiny, tiny fraction of a sievert. The median fatal dose for exposure to radiation is on the order of 3 to 4 sieverts within a period of hours, Dr Thompson said.

Reuters: G7 finance ministers will hold a conference call on Japan tomorrow

4:57am  More on that "US nuclear chair" - who has now been named as Gregory Jaczko, the chief of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, currently giving a report to Congress.

He says all the water has gone from the spent fuel pools at reactor No.4 in Fukushima No.1 facility, Japan's most troubled nuclear plant. This means there is nothing to stop the fuel rods from getting hotter and ultimately melting down.

The outer shell of the rods could also ignite, with enough force to propel the radioactive fuel inside over a wide area, he says.

Gregory Jaczko did not say how the information was obtained, but the NRC and US Department of Energy both have staff on site at the Fukushima complex of six reactors.

He says officials believe radiation levels are extremely high, and that could affect workers' ability to stop temperatures from escalating.

5:45am  More from US NRC boss Gregory Jaczko, who earlier spoke in near-apocalyptic tones, has told Congress that he "strongly believes" the United States could "mitigate" the impact of a nuclear crisis similar to the one unfolding in Japan, if it had occured in the US.

6:07am  IAEA officials warned Japan in December 2008 that nuclear safety rules were outdated and earthquakes could cause "serious problems" for nuclear power stations, according to a leaked US embassy cable, reports Britain's Daily Telegraph:

    The document states:

"He [the IAEA official] explained that safety guides for seismic safety have only been revised three times in the last 35 years and that the IAEA is now re-examining them.

    "Also, the presenter noted recent earthquakes in some cases have exceeded the design basis for some nuclear plants, and that this is a serious problem that is now driving seismic safety work."

Jordan used Japan as good example when attempting to calm  Israel on idea of  builidng nuclear plant along fault line.  "According to the U.S. Embassy cable, Amman attempted to ease Israeli concerns about the reactor and its initially proposed location near the port city of Aqaba by inviting Israeli nuclear experts to meet their Jordanian counterparts."  The cable reveals that the Jordanians claimed that "Japan also has earthquake problems but still builds nuclear power plants, which the Israelis acknowledged as true but also extremely costly," the cable continued.  "The Jordanians then assured their Israeli counterparts that the winds blow southwest, not northwest towards Israel."

WASHINGTON -- The chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave a significantly bleaker appraisal of the threat posed by Japan's nuclear crisis than the Japanese government, saying on Wednesday that the damage at one crippled reactor was much more serious than Japanese officials had acknowledged and advising Americans to evacuate a wider area around the plant than the perimeter established by Japan.

The announcement marked a new and ominous chapter in the five-day long effort by Japanese engineers to bring four side-by-side reactors under control after their cooling systems were knocked out by an earthquake and tsunami last Friday. It also suggested a serious split between Washington and Tokyo, after American officials concluded that the Japanese warnings were insufficient, and that, deliberately or not, they had understated the potential threat of what is taking place inside the nuclear facility.

Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the commission, said in Congressional testimony that the commission believed that all the water in the spent fuel pool at the No. 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station had boiled dry, leaving fuel rods stored there exposed and bleeding radiation. As a result, he said, "We believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures."

If his analysis is accurate and Japanese workers have been unable to keep the spent fuel at that inoperative reactor properly cooled -- it needs to remain covered with water at all times -- radiation levels could make it difficult not only to fix the problem at reactor No. 4, but to keep workers at the Daiichi complex from servicing any of the other problem reactors at the plant.

....

Those emergency measures, implemented by a small squad of workers and firemen, are the main steps Japan is taking at Daiichi to forestall a full blown fuel meltdown that would lead to much higher releases of radioactive material.

"We are going to use the Metropolitain polices Water Cannon to cool the reactor"
"Will that work"?
"Of Course, but it's never been tried before, and it is a last ditch attempt"

Boggles

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Nuff said.

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

Ok, we have some news from the Japan Nuclear Agency that the radiation level has steadily decreased over the last 12 hours at Fukushima Daiichi

There is some anxiety at US military bases in Japan about exposure to radiation, Reuters reports. On a Facebook page for US Naval Forces Japan, some Americans voiced concern. One living in Atsugi, Japan, where radiation was detected at a naval base, asked about a potential evacuation. "Having a toddler and being pregnant, I need to know if they can get us going," wrote 21-year-old Chelsea Origer.

Qantas is now ensuring that its flight crews do not overnight in Tokyo by stopping all Narita flights in Hong Kong each way to rotate crews there rather than in Japan's largest city.

Jetstar is achieving the same result by routing its Tokyo flights through Osaka, which is it also serves directly.

While Qantas is at pains to stress that it is doing this for logistical reasons rather than radioactivity concerns, the Australian and International Pilots Association sees it somewhat differently.

Spent fuel rods in Unit 4 of Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have been exposed, resulting in the emission of "extremely high" levels of radiation, the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday.

"What we believe at this time is that there has been a hydrogen explosion in this unit due to an uncovering of the fuel in the fuel pool," Gregory Jaczko told a House energy and commerce subcommittee hearing. "We believe that secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool, and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures."

The water served to both cool the uranium fuel and shield it. But once the uranium fuel was no longer covered by water, its zirconium cladding that encases the fuel rods heated, generating hydrogen, said Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a former official with the Department of Energy.

That caught fire, resulting in a situation that is "very, very serious," he told CNN. He said the next solution may involve nuclear plant workers having to take heroic acts. Asked to be more specific, he said, "This is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives. ... It's very difficult for me to contemplate that but it's, it may have reached that point."

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/16/japan.nuclear.reactors/?hpt=T1

"More alarming warnings from embassies in Tokyo suggesting citizens leave. Not bc of radiation, but bc supplies of food, fuel running low."

An additional 28,000 people have been evacuated from areas near the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant to avoid possible exposure to radiation, NHK television reports. But many temporary shelters in the 31 municipalities in Fukushima prefecture were too overcrowded to cope with the influx and had to turn them away. The displaced are now heading to neighbouring prefectures.

Nuclear safety officials in France said they were "pessimistic" about whether engineers could prevent a meltdown at the Fukushima power plant after a pool containing spent fuel rods overheated and boiled dry.

Last night radiation levels were "extremely high" in the stricken building, which was breached by an earlier explosion, meaning that radiation could now escape into the atmosphere. Tokyo Electric, the owners of the plant, said five workers had been killed at the site, two were missing and 21 had been injured.

Last night a US nuclear safety chief said that the Japanese government had failed to acknowledge the full seriousness of the situation at the Fukushima plant and that warnings to citizens had been insufficient and understated.

The water canons have arrived at Fukushima! NHK reports just now

Nikkei is plunging, down 4.37%

The Japan nuclear agency says they are planning to run electricity cable to crippled nuclear plant

Asahi Shimbun's English language site on Facebook has a description of the grim conditions facing refugees in the icy north of Japan, at the centre of the earthquake's devastation:

In Morioka, the mercury hit a low of minus 1.4 degrees. Throughout wide areas of the Tohoku region heavy snow forced evacuees inside evacuation centers. Many had fled their homes with little more than the clothes on their backs after the March 11 M9.0 earthquake and tsunami.

Evacuees in many shelters were crammed into cold, uncomfortably tight quarters, raising fears of flu outbreaks.

At municipal Daiichi Junior High School in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, about 20 residents huddled around a large drum where a bonfire was burning.

Here, at least, fuel was not a problem.

"We have all the lumber we need," said one evacuee who had been at the shelter since the the first day of the disaster. He said that the fires were kept burning around the clock. With the school surrounded by homes flattened by the quake, wood was plentiful.

As in Japan, American reactors are aging, and some sit precariously on fault lines and on beaches.

SAN FRANCISCO - More radiation monitors are being deployed in the western United States and Pacific territories, as officials seek to mollify public concern over exposure from damaged nuclear plants in Japan, federal environmental regulators said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency already monitors radiation throughout the area as part of its RadNet system, which measures levels in air, drinking water, milk and rain.

The additional monitors are being deployed in response to the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, where emergency workers are attempting to cool overheated reactors damaged by last week's magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami.

Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said they do not expect harmful radiation levels to reach the U.S. from Japan.

Yuli Andreyev, former head of the agency tasked with cleaning up after Chernobyl, told the Guardian that the Japanese had failed to grasp the scale of the disaster. He also said the authorities had to be willing to sacrifice nuclear response workers for the good of the greater public, and should not only be deploying a skeleton staff. "They don't know what to do," he said. "The personnel have been removed and those that remain are stretched."

If he falls, we have TEPCO executives to throw in.

I will become a patissier, God willing.

The multi-billion dollar Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) program, under construction at the Savannah River Site, is supposed to contribute to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. But this very generous contract in the hands of the French company AREVA remains controversial.

A few years after ratification of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), the United States and Russia committed to dispose of 34 metric tons of their surplus weapons plutonium in order to reduce the threat that this material could be stolen or diverted. The countries put in place a U.S.-Russian independent and scientific commission in 1996 to propose concrete options to dispose of the plutonium. Its report published in 1997 contained a two-approach proposal: mixing the plutonium with uranium to get MOX fuel for burning in currently operating civilian nuclear power reactors and/or vitrifying the plutonium in glass logs for burial.

Has the MOX Fuel Reactor Been Breached?

The plutonium-based mixed-oxide-fueled number three reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant may have a break in its containment vessel, according to the Japanese government. If the reactor containment has been breached and the radioactive steam emerging from the plant is from the number three reactor core, it could mean that plutonium particles are being spread in the air over Japan.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano first told a press conference that smoke was seen Wednesday morning around the No.3 reactor. Later government spokesmen said they thought the chance the reactor had been breached was low and the steam may have been coming from the spent fuel pool on the roof of the damaged reactor. Edano said, ''As we saw in the No. 2 unit, steam has been released from the [No. 3] reactor's containment vessel."

Access second story from the top link. Be advised that the DC Bureau of The Natural Resources News Service appears to have a VERY slow server that is getting way more hits than it can handle expeditiously.

If one of the reactors has Mixed Oxide Fuel containing plutonium, and if there is any release of that fuel into the atmosphere this would be a very serious escalation of the scale of the catastrophe, given the lethality of even 0.5 micrograms of plutonium. According to a Letter from the Atomic Energy Control Board 600 gram of plutonium can overdose six billion civilians.

In my opinion, were so many of our various cultures not in the grip of centuries long love affairs with power and death we would never have allowed even a gram of plutonium to be brought into existence.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

http://www.irsn.fr/FR/Actualites_presse/Actualites/Documents/IRSN_Seisme-Japon_Point-situation-17032 011-06h.pdf


"People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them." - Jean Monnet

Three critical Atomic Energy Commission memos on the GE Mark I reactor design:

November 11, 1971: outlines problems with the design and pressure suppression system containment.

September 20, 1971: memo from Steven Hanauer recommends that U.S. stop licensing reactors using pressure suppression system

September 25, 1972: memo from Joseph Hendrie (top safety official at AEC) agrees with recommendation but rejects it saying it "could well mean the end of nuclear power..."

Kyodo reports that TEPCO and Electric Power Development Co. (part-owned by TEPCO) will discontinue construction of new nuclear power plant in Aomori Prefecture.

TEPCO : Press Release | Impact to TEPCO's Facilities due to Tohoku-Taiheiyou-Oki Earthquake (as of 10:00AM)

At 6:15 am Today, March 17th, the pressure of the Suppression Chamber temporally increased, but currently it is stable in a certain range. Monitoring will be continued. In order to cool spent fuel pool, water discharge by helicopters has been conducted today on March 17th with the cooperation of Self-Defense Force.

I repost an IMHO imortant bit of information, on the finding and replacement of faulty electrical equipment in the Fukushima Daini plant (maybe they failed to discover the same problem in the three Fukushima Daiichi reactors):

TEPCO : Press Release | Impact to TEPCO's Facilities due to Tohoku-Taiheiyou-Oki Earthquake (as of 10:00AM)

* (Unit 1) As it is confirmed that the temperature of the Emergency Equipment Cooling Water System 1 has increased, at 3:20 pm, March 15th, we stopped the Residual Heat Removal System (B) for the inspection. Subsequently, failure was detected in the power supply facility associated with the pumps of the Emergency Equipment Cooling Water System. At 4:25 pm, March 15th, after replacing the power facility, the pumps and the Residual Heat Removal System (B) have been reactivated.

(Unit 4) As it is confirmed that the pressure at the outlet of the pumps of the Emergency Equipment Cooling Water System*1 has been decreased, at 8:05 pm, March 15th, we stopped the Residual Heat Removal System (B) for the inspection. Subsequently, failure was detected in the power supply facility associated with the pumps of the Emergency Equipment Cooling Water System. At 9:25 pm, March 15th, after replacing the relevant facility, the pumps and the Residual Heat Removal System (B) have been reactivated.

^*1:emergency water system in which cooling water (pure water) circulates which exchanged the heat with sea water in order to cool down bearing pumps and/or heat exchangers etc.

Japanese police have so far confirmed 5,583 deaths in Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunamis that hit northeastern Japan. 9,594 people are still missing.

But the current number of missing people reflects only the number actually registered with the police. Police say the number may be in the tens of thousands.

(The number of missing dropped by a thousand in Miyagi, but increased elsewhere.)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

NHK WORLD English

Japanese police have failed in their attempt to use water canon to cool the No.3 reactor at the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The high-pressure water did not reach the reactor and the police squad has now evacuated to a safety zone.

The operation on Thursday evening followed efforts by the Self-Defense Forces using helicopters earlier in the day.

Thursday, March 17, 2011 20:06 +0900 (JST)

NHK WORLD English

Japan's Self-Defense Forces have started cooling operations from the ground at the quake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The mission started on Thursday evening.

2 of 5 powerful fire engines launched the operation, in an effort to cool down a spent fuel storage pool at the Number Three reactor.

Self-Defense Forces had earlier used helicopters to drop tons of water on the plant.

Thursday, March 17, 2011 20:06 +0900 (JST)

Cooling pond temperatures

As reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency:

Unit 4

14 March, 10.08am GMT: 84 ˚C

15 March, 10.00am GMT: 84 ˚C

16 March, 05.00am GMT: no data
 

 

Unit 5

14 March, 10.08am GMT: 59.7 ˚C

15 March, 10.00am GMT: 60.4 ˚C

16 March, 05.00am GMT: 62.7 ˚C
 

 

Unit 6

14 March, 10.08am GMT: 58.0 ˚C

15 March, 10.00am GMT: 58.5 ˚C

16 March, 05.00am GMT: 60.0 ˚C
 
Neither the IAEA nor the Japan Atomic Industry Forum have data for units 1, 2 and 3.

The radiation level rose at the troubled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant Thursday evening after the Self-Defense Forces' fire trucks began shooting high-pressure streams of water at its crisis-hit No. 3 reactor, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

The level around the plant's administration building rose to 4,000 microsievert per hour from 3,700 after the trucks joined an unprecedented attempt to cool down the reactor's apparently overheating fuel pool, after SDF helicopters dropped tons of water earlier in the day.

It was unchanged after the choppers dumped seawater onto the reactor shortly before 10 a.m., the utility said earlier in the day.

TepcoDisaster tweets: "Water shot from trucks effective in cooling fuel pool as steam rose at #Fukushima Daiichi No.1 Nuclear power plant.

Five have been killed. Two are missing. Twenty-one have been injured in a struggle where, in the words of Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan, "retreat is unthinkable."

The men understand the stakes. They know there is no turning back. One worker told a departing colleague he was prepared to die -- that it was his job. Another informed his wife he wouldn't be coming home anytime soon.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy may consider visiting Japan during his Asian visit at the end of March. "There's no question of bothering the Japanese authorities," Mr Sarkozy said, according to AFP. "But, obviously, if the opportunity presented itself and if the Japanese authorities agreed, it goes without saying that during my Asia tour, I would go there to show our solidarity."

The head of the U.N. atomic watchdog would like to visit the site of a devastated nuclear plant in Japan, he said as he departed for Tokyo. "The situation continues to be very serious," International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano told reporters at Vienna airport as he left with a small group of nuclear experts.

Summary of Unit 3 water strategies from NHK news - First 4 buckets of water from helicopters with lead plates on the bottom to shield radiation, Second pumping from below (assume water canon) but too high radiation and water did not reach pool, Finally Japan SDF used pump trucks to spray 30 tons of water between 7:45pm and 8:09pm. Effect under evaluation.

On Wednesday 16th March I sensed that the rate of official news flow from the Fukushima nuclear site declined leading to a number of conflicting reports and much speculation about what is going on and what might happen to the crippled reactors.

I am not a nuclear engineer and all should be wary of information reported by non-experts on the internet. Here I try to assemble information (not facts) gleaned from TheOilDrum comments, our email list, main stream media and news reports in an attempt to cast light on status and potential outcomes. This involves considerable speculation.

Roof of No. 4:

No. 3:

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Kazuko Yamashita was five when the atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. She now lives in Tokyo and she's sanguine about the risk from the Fukushima nuclear reactors.

I may be a bit too callous about this due to the fact that I was really heavily exposed to radiation, but I don't think this is anything to turn pale over.

People seem to be much too sensitive, though of course it's not really for me to say, and heavy radiation exposure is a serious thing. But I was 3.6km (2.2 miles) from the bomb, and they've evacuated for 20km. I really don't understand this kind of feeling.

Unit 1(Shut down)

• Reactor has been shut down. However, the explosive sound and white smoke were confirmed after the big quake occurred at 3:36PM Mar 12th. It was assumed to be hydrogen explosion and currently under the investigation.

• We have been injecting sea water into the reactor pressure vessel.

Unit 2(Shut down)

• Reactor has been shut down and Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System has been injecting water to the reactor. However, reactor pressure has increased because the system stopped, causing reactor water level to drop. Following the instruction by the government and with fully securing safety, measure to lower the pressure level within the reactor containment vessel and injection of sea water were taken, reactor pressure and water level resumed.

• We are continuing the injection of sea water into the reactor.

• At approximately 6:00am, an abnormal noise began emanating from nearby Pressure Suppression Chamber and the pressure within this chamber decreased.

• While we continue sea water injection operations, the temporary transfer of TEPCO employees and workers from other companies not directly involved in this work has begun.

Unit 3 (Shut down)

• Reactor has been shut down. However, the explosive sound and white smoke were confirmed at 11:01AM Mar 14th. It was assumed to be hydrogen explosion and currently under the investigation.

• As fog like steam was confirmed from reactor building at 8:30AM on March 16th, we transferred the workers to safe area. After that, we decided to discharge water to the upper side of reactor building by helicopters, but could not do that because there was a trouble with implementation of work.

• We plan to discharge water in order to cool spent fuel pool after we complete the preparations by confirming the process of discharging, personnel, and a situation of the site.

• We continue monitoring as it was reported that the pressure of the Suppression Chamber temporally increased at around 6:15AM on March 17th.

• We have been injecting sea water into the reactor pressure vessel.

Unit 4 (shut down due to regular inspection)

• Reactor has been shut down. However, we have confirmed the sustained damage around the 5th floor rooftop area of the Nuclear Reactor Building.

• Afterwards, we confirmed the outbreak of fire at the northwestern part of Nuclear Reactor Building. We immediately reported this matter to the fire department and the related authorities.

• However, at approximately 11:00am, when TEPCO employee arrived at the seen to confirm, the fire had already died down. At 5:45AM on March 16th, we confirmed the outbreak of the fire again but could not confirm it at 6:15AM. We will continue to monitor the situation carefully.

Unit 5 (outage due to regular inspection)

• Reactor has been shut down and sufficient level of reactor coolant to ensure safety is maintained.

• Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage inside the reactor containment vessel.

Unit 6 (outage due to regular inspection)

• Reactor has been shut down and sufficient level of reactor coolant to ensure safety is maintained.

• Currently, we do not believe there is any reactor coolant leakage inside the reactor containment vessel.

Today, at approximately 10am, we observed 400mSv/h at the inland side of the Unit 3 reactor building and 100mSv/h at the inland side of the Unit 4 reactor building.

(Reuters) - Japan may build robots to play the violin, run marathons and preside over weddings, but it has not deployed any of the machines to help repair its crippled reactors.

While robots are commonplace in the nuclear power industry, with EU engineers building one that can climb walls through radioactive fields, the electric power company running Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has not deployed any for the nuclear emergency.

Instead, its skeleton team has been given the unenviable and perhaps deadly task of cooling reactors and spent nuclear fuel on their own, only taking breaks to avoid over-exposure.

A science ministry official said a robot used to detect radiation levels is at the site of the accident in Fukushima, north of Tokyo, but nuclear safety agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama said: "We have no reports of any robots being used."

As Japan's nuclear crisis escalates, emergency workers are finding protection in a unique safety suit created in South Florida.

More than 200 full-body nuclear radiation protection suits manufactured in Medley have been donated to aid power plant workers and rescue teams in Japan, and the company, Radiation Shield Technologies, is working full-time to keep up with orders from companies in Japan.

The suits are in high demand because of their unique material, called Demron, invented by Coral Gables anesthesiologist and pain-management specialist Dr. Ronald DeMeo. The radiation-blocking material offers protection against multiple threats, including infrared radiation, extreme heat, nuclear fallout, biological and chemical agents.

• tubes that were too thin could have been broken in No. 2, preventing the pressure kill;
  
• he suspects that in No. 4, a water tank with cooling water toppled and ran out, and the explosion was caused by hydrogen generated from that.
  

1245: Steve Herman, Voice of America Bureau Chief tweets: "Got rad tested in Koriyama: My body 1500cpm, my boots 3000 cpm. Another reporter: 10,000 cpm on her shoes."

Divide by 120 for uSv. So even the 10,000 cpm is still a fairly low dose.

Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh) Coal - world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity) Coal - China 278 Coal - USA 15 Oil 36 (36% of world energy) Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy) Biofuel/Biomass 12 Peat 12 Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy) Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy) Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy) Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead) Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)

..NPR's Richard Harris, reporting from Tokyo, says it appears from what's being said by authorities that it's most likely that the water dropped from helicopters largely missed the mark and that the water cannons couldn't reach the reactors.

I feel bad that so many people are working in the danger zone to fix this terrible situation and I am running away after this country has been my home for 21 years, but I must make sure my children are safe. One thing that really upset me today is I called British Airways to book a flight having last week got a regular email from them on "Fly to London for 65,000 Yen" and the sales guy on the phone saying he was so sorry that the flight cost now was 10 times that! 700,000 yen! You want to leave Japan but can't afford to go home cause your own country's airline in this awful situation is charging 10 times regular fares!! But good old ANA (All Nippon Airways) still has flights at just over the regular fare for this time of year so again thank you Japan for being there!"

1. Select a place
   
2. Select a weapon
   
3. Nuke it

Source: NYT

"People only accept change when they are faced with necessity, and only recognize necessity when a crisis is upon them." - Jean Monnet

Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from the areas worst affected by the earthquake and tsunami, with many now living in temporary shelters. The maps below show the extent of the evacuation.

Friend who works for Japanese car company is now fielding calls from American idiots who think the cars are radioactive. No words, people.

Extraordinary footage filmed inside a car that was driving along the coast road shows the moment the tsunami hit. The car ploughs forward as what looks like a small wave turns into an enormous torrent, covering the car and leaving it bobbing in the water.

The driver told local media: "When I came to the fishing port and turned the corner I could see the wall of water. At that moment I could do nothing else but keep driving. In the middle of that situation my car was taken by the wave.

"Water came up and the car was floating in the water. I was panicked, the water was probably two metres high. If I came out of the car I thought I would be caught in the water as well so I thought I would wait until it had come down."

Japanese authorities have informed the IAEA that engineers were able to lay an external grid power line cable to unit 2. The operation was completed at 08:30 UTC.

They plan to reconnect power to unit 2 once the spraying of water on the unit 3 reactor building is completed.

The spraying of water on the unit 3 reactor building was temporarily stopped at 11:09 UTC (20:09 local time) of 17 March.

She says she has invited her friend and her family to come to Spain but they trust their government and don't want to flee. They're being tested for radiation exposure daily. They have no water or power.

The clueless coverage in the Spanish press had my friend worried, she said she had been reading the NY Times which she said is less catastrophist.

So, in what may be my last act of "advising", I'll advise you to cut the jargon. -- My old PhD advisor, to me, 26/2/11

Reporting from Ishinomaki, Japan -- Most of the dozens of tsunami-battered towns along Japan's northeastern coast remain mired in mud, but the situation in Ishinomaki is a bit different. Nearly a week after the massive earthquake and tsunami hit the city of 162,000, large portions remain underwater, an instant lake clearly visible on NASA satellite photographs.

Amid the aqueous landscape looms Hideaki Akaiwa, 43, in full battle gear.

In a nation of careful dressers, Akaiwa sports Rambo-style army pants, a blue sweatshirt, muddy sneakers, legs wrapped in plastic secured with orange duct tape, and three different backpacks, including an L.L. Bean fanny pack with a tiny plastic anime character affixed, a doctor that saves people.

More from the US: CBS News reports that travellers from Japan have triggered the radiation detectors at Chicago's O'Hare airport. Though the report does stress the levels were very low.

Japan Defence Minister Kitazawa says fire trucks to spray water over reactor No. 3 Friday afternoon