>Japan gov’t demands quick action to avoid sea contamination

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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.

>Anxiety in Japan grows as death toll steadily climbs

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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.