Reading the dispatches from here
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/
water cannons and hoses seemed somewhat partially successful, at least on the superficial level, but were withdrawn later in the evening due to concerns about radiation exposure to the personnel manning the water hoses and cannons. They want to study the effects.
Somewhere else — reuters, bbc maybe — i read that they want to send a us reconnaisance drone over the site to help assess. I conclude that it has been difficult to gather state of the art equipment to deploy at the site up until the present.
The yen spiked at 76.53 to the dollar in New York recently, now backing off a bit, but continuing a general trend that has been going on for the last couple of years (hmm, actually the last 40 years, but whatever). I would imagine that one concern at the banker level would be what happens in view of this crisis at the end of QE2 on June 30. The USA cannot count on the Japanese to buy any US bonds. Nor should the USA count on the Chinese if only because everyone is on alert. This is just more economic blowback. I guess this gives the USA a better prima facie excuse to broach consideration of a QE3. Maybe it is a shell game. Everyone needs (largely mideast) oil. Japanese will need (largely mideast) oil ASAP. Who will end up with the (laregely worthless) US paper dollars?
Are the mideast countries contributing any oil to Japan?
I think Obama missed a big chance to show the world that he is a world class leader by either postponing his trip to SA, or changing it to go to Tokyo as a sign of support. Had he done either, I think the world would have looked up to him. Instead, going to SA, he is about as far away removed from the disaster physically as he can be. Any pronouncement he makes from SA will sound lame. The more noble sounding the language, the more lame it will seem.