Free Republic

To Japanese and Japan-based Freepers: What's the best, quickest way of getting aid to people on the ground directly -- via local groups, religious instutitons, etc. I'd rather not give it to an international bureaucracy like the Red Cross (Japanese website was confusing), other NGO's or government. This is being posted Front/Breaking because I imagine a lot of other Freepers want this info and, let's face it, it's an emergency over there and these people need quick, effective help as soon as they can get it. I've seen too many stories of waste, corruption and abuse (Haiti, Katrina, etc.) and...

Workers at the disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan say they expect to die from radiation sickness as a result of their efforts to bring the reactors under control, the mother of one of the men tells Fox News. The so-called Fukushima 50, the team of brave plant workers struggling to prevent a meltdown to four reactors critically damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, are being repeatedly exposed to dangerously high radioactive levels as they attempt to bring vital cooling systems back online. Speaking tearfully through an interpreter by phone, the mother of a 32-year-old worker said: “My...

Japanese rescue workers run out of body bags 14.03.2011 | Source: Pravda.Ru A tide of bodies has washed up along Japan's coastline, crematoriums are overwhelmed and rescue workers have run out of body bags as the nation faces the grim reality of a mounting humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis after its tsunami and earthquake. Millions of people were facing a fourth night without water, food or heating in near-freezing temperatures in the north-east devastated by an earthquake and the tsunami wave it spawned. Meanwhile, a third reactor at a nuclear power plant lost its cooling capacity and the fuel rods...

(AP:TOKYO) Japan's transport ministry says it has imposed a no-fly zone over a 20-mile (30-kilometer) radius around the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Ministry spokesman Hiroaki Katsuma said the decision was made Tuesday because of fears that radioactive particles leaking from the complex into the atmosphere could enter passing aircraft.

Japan raced to avert a catastrophe on Wednesday after an explosion at a quake-crippled nuclear power plant sent radiation wafting into Tokyo, prompting some people to flee the capital and others to stock up on essential supplies. The crisis escalated late on Tuesday when operators of the facility said one of two blasts had blown a hole in the building housing a reactor, which meant spent nuclear fuel was exposed to the atmosphere. Prime Minister Naoto Kan urged people within 30 km (18 miles) of the facility -- a population of 140,000 -- to remain indoors, as Japan grappled with...

This is an incredibly powerful video that shows the tsunami slowly rolling into the city from the beginning when a car in the screen shot above is still driving on the road. It begins to look like a river that has begun to flood as it rolls flows left-to-right with the video capturing it all. As if the water were rolling down hill, but fact is it is rolling in from the sea. As the Pacific Ocean moves into the city you will be stunned by the sheer power of the water as it slowly washes away everything in it's...

Japan has told the U.N. nuclear watchdog radioactivity was being released "directly" into the atmosphere from the site of an earthquake-stricken reactor and that it had put out a fire at a spent fuel storage pond there.