Japan gov't demands quick action to avoid sea contamination

TOKYO - Japan's government on Monday told the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant to move quickly to stop radiation seeping into the ocean as desperate engineers resorted to bath salts to help trace a leak from one reactor.
One official has warned it could take months before the nuclear crisis caused by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami is under control.
"We need to stop the spread of (contaminated water) into the ocean as soon as possible. With that strong determination, we are asking Tokyo Electric Power Co to act quickly," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference.
He warned that accumulating radiation from a leak that has defied desperate efforts to halt it "will have a huge impact on the ocean".
In the face of Japan's biggest crisis since World War Two, one newspaper poll said that nearly two-thirds of voters want the government to form a coalition with the major opposition party and work together to recover from the massive damage from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Underlining the concern over the impact on the world's third largest economy, a central bank survey showed that big manufacturers expect business conditions to worsen significantly in the next three months, though they were not quite as pessimistic as some analysts had expected.
An aide to embattled Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Sunday that the government's priority now was to stop radiation leaks from the Fukushima nuclear plant, 240 km north of Tokyo, and that the situation had "somewhat stabilised".

"How long will it take to achieve (the goal of stopping the radiation leaks)? I think several months would be one target," said Goshi Hosono, a ruling party lawmaker and aide to Kan.

In their desperation, engineers at plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) have used anything to hand to try to stop the leaks.
At the weekend, they mixed sawdust and newspapers with polymers and cement in a so far unsuccessful attempt to seal the crack in a concrete pit at reactor no.2, where radioactive water has been flowing into the sea.
On Monday, they resorted to powdered bath salts to produce a milky color to help trace the source of the leak.
TEPCO is planning to put some sort of curtain into the sea by the nuclear plant to try to prevent radioactive water spreading further into the ocean. It has not decided what material to use.
The government has said three of the six Fukushima reactors were now generally stable. At least four will eventually be scrapped but that could take decades.

Japan Nuclear Workers Struggle With Radioactive Water

Workers at Japan's troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex continued Sunday to struggle to contain highly radioactive water that is hampering work to restore vital systems, as they also tried to prevent further spreading of radioactive materials to surrounding areas.

But it was unclear late Sunday night just how severe the problem really was. Earlier in the day, workers were evacuated from one of the reactors when the company running the plant announced that radiation had been detected at an eye-popping 10 million times normal levels. But later Sunday evening, a spokesman for the plant's operator—Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco—said the utility company was "re-analyzing the figure after it was pointed out internally and also by the Nuclear Safety Commission that it might be calculated incorrectly."

The spokesman, Hiro Hasegawa, said a new figure would be issued sometime after midnight Japan time.

"The Tepco numbers were a bit odd or strange," Hidehiko Nishiyama, a senior official at Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, or NISA, told reporters earlier in the evening.

The reported rise in radioactivity added to concerns that efforts to keep nuclear fuel at the Fukushima Daiichi facility from overheating and sustaining further damage, which increases the risk of greater radiation leaks, may suffer further delays.

Previous spikes in radiation levels, both airborne and in water collecting at the site, have repeatedly forced stoppage of scheduled work. Three workers were injured several days ago at the No. 3 reactor after coming into contact with a pool of water that had a reading of 750 millisievert per hour, suggesting the health risks to workers are now even more dire.

Highlighting the inability of authorities so far to confidently pinpoint the source of the leaks, a key step to stanching them, the government's chief spokesperson said Sunday morning that he wasn't sure where the water was coming from.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, speaking on national broadcaster NHK Sunday, said only that "we will analyze where the highly radioactive water is coming from."

The lack of unity in the message from authorities, with Mr. Nishiyama speculating that the water is likely from the reactor core while Prime Minister Naoto Kan's spokesman declined to go that far, may also add to concern over the government's response nearly two weeks after Mr. Kan appointed himself chief of a crisis team.

Authorities said they were attempting to pump the radioactive water to the condenser units that allow steam from the reactor to cool down so that workers could continue their efforts to lay power cables and perform checks in order to bring the plant's systems back on line.

In a sign of the broadening scale of contamination in the vicinity of the plant, seawater collected Saturday afternoon near the plant contained concentrations of radioactive iodine-131 at 1,850 times Japan's legal limit, up from concentrations 1,250 times the limit in water collected the day before, the government said Sunday.

Mr. Nishiyama said authorities plan to switch from fire trucks to electric pumps to inject water into the cores of reactors Nos. 1-3. It wasn't immediately clear if this work, which could bring more sustainability to the crucial task of cooling the nuclear fuel, could proceed if radiation levels were highly elevated.

Meanwhile, Mr. Nishiyama said work is continuing to drain a highly radioactive pool of water in the turbine building of the No. 1 reactor. He also said that starting Monday authorities intend to start using fresh water, instead of the seawater used so far, to douse the spent fuel pool in the No. 4 reactor. The same switch is scheduled to be made at the No. 1 reactor starting Tuesday, Mr. Nishiyama said.

Switching to fresh water from seawater, which has been used for many days, in the cooling process is necessary to stem some problems in the rescue effort. Seawater cooling often worsens water circulation of the cooling pump because of accumulation of crystallized salt.

Repair Work Resumes at Crippled Japanese Nuclear Plant

Despite occasional sightings of smoke and steam billowing from damaged reactor buildings at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant in Japan, the effort has resumed to restore electricity and critical cooling functions. Radiation continues to be detected above normal

levels as far as 300 kilometers south of the facility, which was knocked out of commission by a huge quake and tsunami nearly two weeks ago.

After a break, because of concerns about smoke and radioactive steam, workers at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant on Thursday resumed the attempts to repair the cooling system at the Number 3 reactor.

That is the considered to be the most dangerous unit, because its fuel contains a mix of uranium and plutonium.

Video taken from a helicopter Thursday morning shows what appears to be steam rising from four of the nuclear facility's six reactor buildings. However, authorities say the situation is not serious enough to continue a halt in the critical work to prevent a potentially larger catastrophe.

A re-emergence of black smoke at the Number 3 reactor halted work Wednesday.

There is also fresh concern about the damaged Number 1 reactor where pressure inside the reactor again increased.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano says crews are trying to maintain a delicate balance between spraying water on the radioactive fuel, which causes a rise in pressure, and reducing the water flow which could see temperatures increase to a dangerously high level.

Edano says experts are watching the situation closely and there is no evidence that the reactor vessel has been damaged by excessive pressure.

Since the March 11 magnitude 9.0 earthquake, which triggered a destructive tsunami, the nuclear power complex has experienced many serious problems. These include hydrogen explosions in reactor buildings, radiation leaks, exposed and overheating fuel rods, damaged reactor cores and shaking from powerful aftershocks.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant operator, has also revealed that it spotted 13 times, between March 13 and 16th, a radioactive "neutron beam" about 1.5 kilometers from the Number 1 and 2 reactors.

Some scientists say this means uranium and plutonium might have leaked from the plant's nuclear reactors and the exposed used nuclear fuel rods have discharged a small amount of neutron beams via fission.

James Symons, the director of the nuclear science division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, expresses surprise and skepticism about the report.

"A neutron beam would be a beam of neutrons, which are a neutral particle. They are certainly produced in a fission reaction inside a reactor. But if neutrons escape and were to come out of the reactor they would not be visible. So you would not see a neutron beam," he said. "Plus Ican't imagine a process in which neutrons would be emitted from the reactor in a beam."

The physicist says, at this stage, the Fukushima disaster has more in common with 1979 Three Mile Island partial meltdown, in the United States, than the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe in Ukraine.

"All these things are different. But it's closer," said Symons. "It's certainly very unlike what happened at Chernobyl where the entire reactor exploded basically. It's certainly very serious, but - as far as we can tell - it's also coming under control."

Radiation continues to be detected in the surrounding air, soil and sea water.

Japan's government is now advising people beyond the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant to remain indoors. Officials say that, since the explosions, some infants theoretically may have accumulated 100 millisieverts of radiation in their thyroids.

Some scientists say those exposed to that total radiation dose should take potassium iodide, because an annual dose of 100 millisieverts is believed to be associated with an increased risk of cancer.

Japan's science ministry says radiation levels detected in Tokyo have tripled, compared to those detected earlier in the week.

The Tokyo metropolitan government, as well of those of the adjacent prefectures of Chiba and Saitama, have announced levels of radioactive iodine considered unsafe for infants were detected this week in tap water.

That has prompted panic buying of bottled water.

Vegetable shipments have been stopped out of areas adjacent to the crippled nuclear power plant after some leafy greens were found to be contaminated with radioactive iodine and cesium exceeding government standards.

In Tsunami’s Wake, Much Searching but Few Are Rescued

The tsunami that barreled into northeast Japan on Friday was so murderous and efficient that not much was left when search-and-rescue teams finally reached Natori on Monday. There was searching, but not much rescuing. There was, essentially, nobody left to rescue.
The mournful scene here in Natori, a farm and fishing town that has been reduced to a vast muddy plain, was similar to rescue efforts in other communities along the coast as police, military and foreign assistance teams poked through splintered houses and piles of wreckage.The death toll from the 8.9-magnitude quake — the strongest in Japan’s seismically turbulent history — continued to climb, inexorably so, as officials uncovered more bodies. By Monday afternoon, the toll stood at 2,800 but many thousands of people remained unaccounted for and were presumed dead. Police officials said it was certain that more than 10,000 had died.
Police teams, for example, found about 1,000 bodies that had washed ashore on a scenic peninsula in Miyagi Prefecture, close to the epicenter of the quake that unleashed the tsunami. The bodies washed out as the tsunami retreated. Now they are washing back in.
A string of crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima also continued to bedevil engineers who were desperately trying to cool them down. The most urgent worries concerned the failures of two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where workers were still struggling to avert meltdowns and where some radiation had already leaked.
The building housing Reactor No. 1 exploded on Saturday, and a hydrogen buildup blew the roof off the No. 3 reactor facility on Monday morning. The blast did not appear to have harmed the reactor itself, government and utility officials said, but six workers were injured in the blasts.
Later Monday, a company official said Reactor No. 2 was losing cooling function and workers were pumping in water, according to Yukio Edano, the chief government spokesman.
The collective anxiety about Japan caused a rout in the Japanese stock market, and the main Nikkei index fell 6.2 percent in Monday’s trading, the worst drop in three years. The broader Topix, or Tokyo Stock Price index, dropped 7.4 percent. Worried about the severe strains on banking and financial systems, the Bank of Japan pumped about $180 billion into the economy on Monday, and the government was discussing an emergency tax increase to help finance relief and recovery work.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the country’s crippled nuclear power grid, announced plans for rotating blackouts across the region to conserve electricity — the first controlled power cuts in Japan in 60 years. Tokyo residents worriedly followed a series of confusing and apparently contradictory statements about the location and duration of the power cuts. Public conservation of electricity was significant enough, the company said, that the more drastic blackout scenarios were being scaled back.
Monday’s explosion at the Daiichi plant was the latest development in what Japan’s prime minister has called the nation’s worst crisis since World War II.
Japan’s $5 trillion economy, the third largest in the world, was threatened with severe disruptions and partial paralysis as many industries shut down and the armed forces and volunteers mobilized for the far more urgent effort of finding survivors, evacuating residents near the stricken power plants and caring for the victims of the 8.9 magnitude quake that struck on Friday.
The disaster has left more than 10,000 people dead, many thousands homeless and millions without water, power, heat or transportation.
The death toll was certain to climb as searchers began to reach coastal villages that essentially vanished under the first muddy surge of the tsunami, which struck the nation’s northern Pacific coast near the port city of Sendai. In one town alone, the port of Minamisanriku, a senior police official said the number of dead would “certainly be more than 10,000.” That is more than half the town’s population of 17,000.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan told a news conference in Tokyo late Sunday: “I think that the earthquake, tsunami and the situation at our nuclear reactors makes up the worst crisis in the 65 years since the war. If the nation works together, we will overcome.”
The government ordered 100,000 troops — nearly half the country’s active military force and the largest mobilization in postwar Japan — to take part in the relief effort. An American naval strike group led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan also arrived off Japan on Sunday to help with refueling, supply and rescue duties.
The quake and tsunami did not reach Japan’s industrial heartland, although economists said the power blackouts could affect industrial production — notably carmakers, electronics manufacturers and steel plants — and interrupt the nation’s famously efficient supply chain. Tourism was also bound to plummet, as the United States, France and other nations urged citizens to avoid traveling to Japan.
AIR Worldwide, a risk consultant in Boston, said its disaster models estimated property damage to be as high as $35 billion. The company said 70 percent of residential construction in Japan was wood, and earthquake insurance was not widely used.
Amid the despair and the worry over an unrelenting series of strong aftershocks, there was one bright moment when the Japanese Navy rescued a 60-year-old man who had been floating at sea for two days.
The man, Hiromitsu Arakawa, clung to the roof of his tiny home in the town of Minamisoma after it was torn from its foundations by the first wave of the tsunami, the Defense Ministry said. He saw his wife slip away in the deluge, but he hung on as the house drifted away. He was discovered late Sunday morning, still on his roof, nine miles south of the town and nine miles out to sea.
The quake was the strongest to hit Japan, which sits astride the “ring of fire” that designates the most violent seismic activity in the Pacific Basin.
About 80,000 people were ordered to evacuate danger zones around the two compromised atomic facilities in Fukushima Prefecture. Japanese officials reported that 22 people showed signs of radiation exposure and as many as 170 were feared to have been exposed, including some who had been outside one of the plants waiting to be evacuated. Three workers were suffering what officials described as full-blown radiation sickness.
In a televised address the trade minister, Banri Kaieda, asked businesses to limit power use as they returned to operation on Monday. He asked specifically for nighttime cutbacks of lights and heating. The power company said the blackouts would affect three million customers, including homes and factories.
The Japan Railways Group cut operations at six of its commuters lines and two bullet trains to 20 percent of normal to conserve electricity.
Tokyo and central Japan continued to be struck by aftershocks off the eastern coast of Honshu Island. A long tremor registering 6.2 caused buildings in central Tokyo to sway dramatically on Sunday morning.
Search teams from more than a dozen nations were bound for Japan, including a unit from New Zealand, which suffered a devastating quake last month in Christchurch. A Japanese team that had been working in New Zealand was called home.
A combined search squad from Los Angeles County and Fairfax County, Va., arrived from the United States with 150 people and a dozen dogs that would help in the search for bodies.
Assistance teams were also expected from China and South Korea, two of Japan’s most bitter rivals.
Tokyo’s acceptance of help — along with a parade of senior officials who offered updates at televised news conferences on Sunday — was in marked contrast to the government’s policies after the 1995 Kobe earthquake, which killed more than 6,000 people. Japan refused most offers of aid at the time, restricted foreign aid operations and offered little information about the disaster.
In Sendai, a city of roughly a million people near the center of the catastrophe, many buildings cracked but none had collapsed. Still, city officials said that more than 500,000 households and businesses were without water, and many more lacked electricity as well.
Soldiers surrounded Sendai’s city hall, where officials were using two floors to shelter evacuees and treat the injured, using power drawn from a generator. Thousands of residents sought refuge inside and waited anxiously for word from their relatives. A line of people waited outside with plastic bottles and buckets in hand to collect water from a pump.
Masaki Kokubum, 35, has been living at the city hall since the quake. He had worked at a supermarket, and his neighborhood lost power and water. He said he had not slept in three days.
“I can’t sleep,” he said as he sat in a chair in a hallway. “I just sit here and wait.”

Anxiety in Japan grows as death toll steadily climbs

The official death toll reached 1,647 on Monday. But the numbers did not take into account the 2,000 bodies that Japan's Kyodo News said had been found in the hard-hit Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's northeast coast.

If confirmed, the discovery would be the largest yet of victims from the epic quake and devastating tsunami that hit Japan four days ago.
Meanwhile, fresh white smoke rose again Monday from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, caused by an explosion at a building tied to the facility's No. 3 reactor. A similar explosion occurred two days earlier at the plant's No. 1 reactor building.
But the explosion did not damage the reactor or result in significant radiation leakage, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.
The quake and tsunami disabled the coolant systems at Fukushima Daiichi, which is about 260 km (160 miles) north of Tokyo.
Japanese authorities have said there is a "possibility" that a meltdown has occurred in the damaged reactors but said that there were no indications of dangerously high radiation levels in the atmosphere.
Still, the government evacuated more than 200,000 residents from homes close to the plant and tested 160 people for radiation exposure on Sunday, authorities said.
In Miyagi Prefecture, rescue workers sifted through mountains of debris, as hope for survivors dimmed.
The town of Minami Sanriku -- about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Pacific Ocean -- morphed into a massive pile of wood that used to house some 20,000 residents. An eerie silence prevailed as emergency rescue officials said they didn't think anyone was still alive under the rubble. About half of Minami Sanriku's population was unaccounted for.
So far, about 15,000 people have been rescued, the Kyodo reported Monday, citing Prime Minister Nato Kan.
Japanese troops went door-to-door in the city of Ishinomaki, hoping to find survivors -- but found mostly the bodies of elderly residents.
In the area of Sendai, where houses and buildings disintegrated into rushing water within seconds, solemn residents waited in lines that stretched blocks for food, water and gas. Despite the devastation surrounding them, the crowds appeared calm and orderly.
But more despair may be in store. There's a high chance of a magnitude-7.0 quake or above in the next three days because of increased tectonic activity, the earthquake prediction department chief for the Japan Meteorological Agency said Sunday.
The U.S. Geological Survey reported scores of such aftershocks. More than two dozen were greater than magnitude 6, the size of the quake that severely damaged Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, killing 123 people.
On Sunday, the country's prime minister called on people to pull together and face sacrifices.
"In the 65 years after the end of World War II, this is the toughest and the most difficult crisis for Japan," Kan told reporters.
"We Japanese had a lot of difficulties in the past, but we were able to overcome those difficulties to reach this peaceful and prosperous society we have been able to build," Kan said. "So with regard to the earthquake and tsunami, I am confident that the Japanese people can be united to work together."
The cooperation Kan called for will include accepting rolling blackouts in some areas to preserve electricity, as emergency workers try to repair power plants damaged by the quake. About 2.5 million households, just over 4% of the total in Japan, were without electricity Sunday, said Ichiro Fujisaki, the nation's U.S. ambassador.
Landmarks such as Tokyo Tower and the capital's Rainbow Bridge went dark in an effort to conserve energy.
Japanese officials raised the quake's magnitude to 9.0 on Sunday, but the USGS kept its magnitude at 8.9.
The devastating earthquake and tsunami will rank among the costliest natural disaster on record, experts predict.
Japan's central bank announced plans Monday to inject 15 trillion yen ($186 billion) into the economy to reassure global investors in the stability of Japanese financial markets and banks.
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Still, Japanese markets dropped sharply on Monday, the first trading day since the disaster. By mid-day local time, the benchmark Nikkei 225 was down more than 6.4%.
The drop was the largest single day fall since September 2008 after the collapse of Lehman Brothers during the financial crisis.
A massive emergency response operation is underway in northern Japan, with world governments and international aid groups coming together to bring relief to the beleaguered island nation. Sixty-nine governments have offered to help with search and rescue, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
Friday's quake is the strongest in recorded history to hit Japan, according to USGS records that date to 1900. The world's largest recorded quake took place in Chile on May 22, 1960, with a magnitude of 9.5, the agency said.

Workers scramble to cool reactors; official says 2nd blast possible

Japanese efforts to prevent a nuclear meltdown by flooding reactors with seawater are a last-ditch attempt, but do not mean that a nuclear tragedy is imminent, experts said Sunday.
Nuclear experts who have followed the developments at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan say that despite several setbacks, the possibility of massive radiation exposure remains low -- at least for now.
Meanwhile, a state of emergency has been declared at a nuclear power plant in Onagawa, Japan, where excessive radiation levels have been recorded following Friday's massive earthquake, the United Nations' atomic watchdog agency said Sunday.
Authorities have told the agency that the three reactor units at the Onagawa plant "are under control."
"I don't think we're really close to a meltdown," said Dale Klein, vice chancellor for special engineering projects at the University of Texas, referring to the Daiichi plant.
There does appear to be some fuel damage to one of the reactors, but the seawater method to keep them cool seems to be working.
"I think when the dust all settles, the death toll from the tsunami and the earthquake will be much more significant than any damage from these reactors," he said.
The use of seawater shows that authorities are giving up future use of the Daiichi plant and are focusing solely on protecting people and the environment, experts said.
"If they are (using seawater), it's because they have no other choice," said James Walsh, a research associate at the security studies program at MIT. "The last thing you want to do is pump seawater and boron into a reactor."
The salt and boron will corrode the reactor, he said.
"Essentially, they are saving the white flag and saying, 'This plant is done,' " Walsh said. "This is a last-ditch mechanism to try to prevent overheating and to prevent a partial or full meltdown."
In addition, danger from any radiation that escapes would vary on a number of factors, including the type of radiation, the amount and geography, he said.
The use of the seawater reflects the seriousness of the damage, said James Acton of the nuclear policy program at The Carnegie Endowment.
"You're only going to do that if you're seriously worried about the possibility of significant core meltdown," he said.
He added that the word "meltdown" can mean a lot of different things, depending on its severity.
"So there's both significant uncertainty about what's going on at the moment, and significant uncertainty about the possible outcomes," Acton said.
A major explosion of a reactor at the Daiichi plant is "almost inconcievable," he said. "I think that worst-case outcome is unbelievably unlikely in this case."
At the Daiichi nuclear plant, workers have been scrambling to cool off fuel rods at both reactors after the massive earthquake and tsunami disabled their cooling systems. Japanese authorities have said there is a "possibility" that a meltdown has occurred in the reactors.
A meltdown is a catastrophic failure of the reactor core, with a potential for widespread radiation release.
But Japanese officials stressed that there were no indications of dangerously high radiation levels in the atmosphere around the two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan. They said they were unable to confirm whether a meltdown had occurred because they cannot get close enough to the reactors' cores.
"We are continuing to monitor the radiation, but it is under control," Edano told reporters.
Later Sunday, a spokesman for Japan's prime minister repeated that assertion and said he would not describe what was occurring in the reactors as a "meltdown."
"The situation is under control. ....We have been succeeding in lowering pressure inside the containment vessel," spokesman Noriyuki Shikata said.
The aftermath of the devastating earthquake -- from the scores of casualties to the nuclear concerns at the plant in Fukushima prefecture -- marks the "toughest and most difficult crisis for Japan" since the end of World War II, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Sunday.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said an explosion could take place in the building housing the No. 3 reactor at the Daiichi plant.
"There is a possibility that the third reactor may have hydrogen gas that is accumulating in the reactor (that) may potentially cause an explosion," he said.
An explosion caused by hydrogen buildup Saturday blew the roof off a concrete building housing the plant's No. 1 reactor, but the reactor and its containment system were not damaged in the explosion.
Edano said the No. 3 reactor would also likely withstand a similar blast, noting that workers had already released gas from the building to try to prevent an explosion.
Meanwhile, the prime minister ordered a Tokyo power company to conduct a widespread power outage in an effort to preserve energy as workers try to repair power plants damaged in the earthquake, including nuclear facilities.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company has been instructed to conduct three-hour rolling blackouts as the country faces a 10 million kilowatt shortage, officials said.
Edano said doctors were examining nine people who tested positive for high radiation levels on their skin and clothing.
Meanwhile, he said authorities were responding under the presumption that meltdowns had taken place in both reactors.
If the effort to cool the nuclear fuel inside the reactor fails completely -- a scenario experts who have spoken to CNN say is unlikely -- the resulting release of radiation could cause enormous damage to the plant or release radiation into the atmosphere or water. That could lead to widespread cancer and other health problems, experts say.
Authorities have downplayed such a scenario, insisting the situation appears under control and that radiation levels in the air are not dangerous. Still, as what they described as "a precaution," more than 200,000 people who live within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of the plant have been ordered to leave the area.
"The bottom line is that we just don't know what's going to happen in the next couple of days and, frankly, neither do the people who run the system," added Dr. Ira Helfand, a member of the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
What we do know, he added, is that Japan's nuclear facilities are "way out of whack."
At one medical facility in Koriyama, about one hour from Fukushima, about 1 in 5 people being tested for high radiation levels are being referred to a hospital for further testing. About 1,000 people have been tested so far, officials said.
While some analysts said Japanese officials had not informed the public quickly enough about the evolving crisis, Jay Lehr, science director at the Heartland Institute in Chicago, said he was "100% confident" that Japan would be able to solve the problems at its nuclear plants.
"Nobody builds better power plants than Japan, because they are the most seismically active country on earth. They are built to withstand this very earthquake," he said.
"I am absolutely, 100% confident that they will be able to solve the existing problem of a meltdown, if it is occurring, that they will be able to totally eliminate the escape of any radiation," he said.
Robert Apthorpe, a nuclear engineer who has been fielding questions about Japan's nuclear plant problems on Twitter, said Sunday that time is of the essence.
"We have to watch very carefully the next 24 to 48 hours. ... We're not out of the woods yet," he said.
The problems at the Daiichi plant began Friday, when the 8.9-magnitude quake that struck offshore forced the automatic shutdown of the plant's nuclear reactors and knocked out the main cooling system, according to the country's nuclear agency.
A tsunami resulting from the quake then washed over the site, knocking out backup generators.
The reactors at the Daiichi plant are boiling-water reactors. The reactor affected by Saturday's explosion is Fukushima Daiichi 1. It was connected to the grid in November 1970, making it about 40 years old.
The No. 1 unit is the oldest of six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi site, according to the World Nuclear Association.
Japan is heavily dependent on nuclear power, with 54 plants and another eight slated for construction, said Aileen Mioko Smith of Green Action, an environmental group. All are located in "very seismic" areas, she said.
Authorities have also detected cooling system problems at another nuclear facility in Fukushima Prefecture, the Fukushima Daini plant, but have not expressed any concerns about possible meltdowns there.
Edano said that there have not been any leaks of radioactive material at either of the affected plants. Authorities deliberately have let out radioactive steam in order to alleviate growing pressure inside both of the affected reactors.

Japan's PM hangs on but outlook grim

Japan's unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Monday refused to step down after the resignation of his foreign minister over a political funding scandal that has added to pressure on him to quit or call a snap election.

But it is far from clear how Kan, if he does manage to cling to office, will be able to resolve the political stalemate that has left the government struggling to implement policies to cut into a huge public debt and win approval from a divided parliament to enact a new budget from April.

"Carrying out the administration's duty for the four-year term and then letting the people decide at the ballot box is best for the people themselves," he told a parliamentary session.

"I intend to firmly fulfill my duty until that time comes."

But some analysts warned that Kan's government may well collapse sooner than later. He is Japan's fifth leader since 2006 and has no clear successor in sight.

The resignation of Seiji Maehara, a security hawk and critic of China's military buildup, removes a strong contender to replace Kan and has deepened the impression of a government in disarray, unable to resolve deep problems facing the world's third largest economy.

The stalemate is blocking passage of budget bills to implement a $1 trillion budget for the year from April and keeping the government from tackling tax reforms to curb massive public debt, already twice the size of the $5 trillion economy.

Kan has made fiscal reforms including a rise in the 5 percent sales tax a priority as a way to fund the social costs of a fast aging society. But he has failed to get opposition parties to join in talks on the topic.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano will serve temporarily as foreign minister while Kan picks a successor, who will have a full plate managing strained ties with China and Russia and keeping relations with ally Washington on an even keel.

"LACK OF GOVERNING ABILITY"

Kan's health minister, Ritsuo Hosokawa, is also under fire for messy handling of measures to help housewives who had mistakenly failed to pay their pension premiums, and media warned more cabinet ministers could quit in a "domino effect."

Kan faces pressure from within his own fractious Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to step down, while opposition parties are pushing him to call a snap election in the powerful lower house.

"This has revealed the Kan administration's lack of governing ability, and the only ways to break through this situation are for the cabinet to resign as soon as possible or for a snap election to be called," Kenji Kosaka, a lawmaker in the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), told reporters.

Jiji news agency quoted an LDP executive as saying the main opposition party could submit a censure motion against the prime minister this month.

A Yomiuri newspaper poll released on Monday showed that 51 percent of voters wanted Kan to resign, with 56 percent saying they'd blame the government and DPJ if bills needed to enact a $1 trillion budget for the year from April are not passed on time.