Posted on 03/11/2011 3:34:41 AM PST by TSgt
A fire has broken out at one of Japan's nuclear power plants after the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that struck the country today, according to news agency reports.
The fire is reported to be at Tohoku Electricity’s Onagawa plant. The Japanese government has declared a nuclear power emergency situation, the news agency Jiji said, quoting the Japanese defence ministry .
However, the UN nuclear watchdog in Vienna saidthe four Japanese nuclear power plants closest to the earthquake have been safely shut down. "The four Japanese nuclear power plants closest to the quake have been safely shut down," the agency said in a statement, adding it was liaising with the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on further details of the situation.
All Japanese ports have closed close, with discharge operations halted, after the earthquake and the resultant tsunami, shippers say. A tsunami 10 metres high hit the port in Sendai, northern Japan, with Sendai airport subsequently flooded, according to television reports. The tsunami swept away everything in its path, including houses, ships and cars. Several other airports, including Tokyo's Narita, were closed and rail services halted.
Tokyo Electric Power said the power had been cut to 4 million homes. Among other reports of damage, Japanese media reported a fire at JFE Holdings' steel plant in Chiba. JFE, the world's fifth-largest steelmaker, said there was no major impact. Cosmo Oil said its Chiba refinery had been hit by a fire in storage tank, and it was still working to extinguish it. JX Nippon Oil, Japan's top refiner, halted operations at three refineries in Sendai, Kashima and Negishi, Jiji News said. Television showed black smoke pouring out of an industrial area in Yokohama's Isogo area.
By 2pm UAE time at least 22 people were reported killed in the earthquake, the biggest to hit Japan in 140 years.
Electronics giant Sony, one of the country's biggest exporters, shut six factories, while Toyota said it had halted production at a parts factory and two assembly plants in the area, and Nissan, the country's second-largest automaker, stopped operations at four factories, media reported.
Experts are predicting that the earthquake will have a serious effect on Japan’s economy, which the Bank of Japan has been struggling to revive. With Japanese interest rates already near zero, analysts said the central bank and the government had few options but to inject more money into the economy, even if it risked swelling the already bloated deficit. Tsutomu Yamada, a market analysts at Kabu.com Securities. said: "The extent of the damage is hard to tell but it seems devastating for the northern Japan economy. The government must act quickly to announce support packages and the central bank should pump more money into the economy,"
The earthquake in 1995 that devastated Kobe in Japan caused $100 billion in damage.
A tsunami warning has been issued for the entire Pacific basin except the mainland United States and Canada following a huge earthquake that hit Japan on Friday, the U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said.
ooops!
THANKS! I was looking for this!
bttt
This report is contrary to FNC’s report that all is stable on the reactor front.
“Chiba refinery had been hit by a fire in storage tank, and it was still working to extinguish it.”
Well it was a HUGE fire. The tanks blew up, literally, and a mushroom cloud of fire shot up at least several hundred feet if not a thousand feet and lit up the city... It was pretty extreme...
The news report made it sound like no big deal...
trust me the media will blow this into a nuclear disaster, this will help slow reactor developent and building world wide.
FWIW regular FOX is mentioning there are problems cooling a core at a nuke site in Japan but I’ve missed the details.
And if it did, do you think they would tell a panicky Japanese public, or anyone else for that matter?
Prayers for all of Japan in these terrible times.
Japan: trying to fix nuclear plant cooling problem
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/11/japan-quake-reactor-idUSTFD00666420110311
(Reuters) - Japan said on Friday a cooling function at Tokyo Electric Power’s (9501.T) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was not working after a major earthquake but that it was trying to get backup power for cooling.
The government has declared an emergency situation as a precaution but there was no radioactive leakage and no damage from the cooling problem was expected at this stage, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told a news conference. (Reporting by Chisa Fujioka and Risa Maeda; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
State of emergency is declared at Japanese nuclear plants
Process for cooling reactor ‘not going as planned’ in wake of quake, administrator says
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42025882/ns/world_news-asiapacific/
TOKYO — Japan’s top government spokesman and local administrators say emergencies have been issued at two nuclear power plants over cooling-system fears in the wake of Friday’s giant earthquake.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says the nuclear power plant in Fukushima developed a mechanical failure in the system needed to cool the reactor after it was shut down after the earthquake. He said there was no radiation leak.
just wondering... why is the posting time over 5 minutes different than real time? It is 3:56 on my cell/computer,,,but look at my post time!
Two plants now ?
re: details...
I heard from Japan TV that there was no water available to cool one of the Nuclear Power Plants...
Can they just “turn it off?”
Doesn’t sound good!
Prayers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.