[Sustain] Quake & Nuclear Leak In Japan

[Eric Brooks]

Hi all,

There was just an earthquake and fire at a nuclear plant which resulted 
in a leak of radioactive material.

All of the other mainstream media that I checked for the story, 
including Reuters (and even the CBC), did -not- report the radioactive 
leak, most of them even saying that there were no radioactive releases! 
KPFA Radio however, covered the story accurately.

see below or http://www.thestar.com/News/article/236347

Deadly Japan quake raises nuclear concerns
Rescue workers search a collapsed house in Kashiwazaki, July 16.

Jul 16, 2007 02:12 PM
KOJI SASAHARA

Associated Press

KASHIWAZAKI, Japan — A strong earthquake struck northwestern Japan 
today, causing a fire and radioactive water leak at the world’s largest 
nuclear plant.

At least seven people were killed and hundreds injured in the 6.8 
magnitude quake that collapsed wooden houses, ripped apart roads and 
buckled seaside bridges.

Flames and billows of black smoke poured from the Kashiwazaki nuclear 
plant — the world’s largest in terms of power output capacity. It took 
two hours to extinguish the fire in an electrical transformer, said 
Motoyasu Tamaki, a Tokyo Electric Power Co. official.

The plant leaked about 1,200 litres of water, said Katsuya Uchino, 
another Tokyo Electric official. Uchino said the water contained a tiny 
amount of radioactive material — a billionth of the guideline under 
Japanese law — and is believed to have flushed into the Sea of Japan.

The quake, which left fissures a metre wide in the ground along the 
coast, hit shortly after 10 a.m. local time and was centred in the Sea 
of Japan off Niigata state on Honshu Island.

Buildings swayed 260 kilometres away in Tokyo. Sirens wailed in 
Kashiwazaki, a city of about 90,000, which appeared to be hardest hit.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency measured the quake at a 6.8 magnitude and 
said a 6.6 magnitude quake was among the aftershocks. The U.S. 
Geological Survey, which monitors quakes around the world, said the 
initial quake registered 6.7.

“I was so scared — the violent shaking went on for 20 seconds,” Ritei 
Wakatsuki, who was working in a convenience store in Kashiwazaki. “I 
almost fainted by the fear of shaking.”

The fire and subsequent leak triggered fresh concern about the 
earthquake resistance of Japan’s nuclear power plants, which supply 
nearly a third of the country’s electricity.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant is the world’s largest nuclear power 
facility with an output capacity of 8.21 million kilowatts. By 
comparison, the largest U.S. nuclear power facility, in Palo Verde, 
Ariz., has an output capacity of 3.88 million kilowatts, according to 
the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Aileen Mioko Smith, of the environmentalist group Green Action, said the 
fire showed that some facilities at nuclear power plants such as 
electrical transformers were built to lower quake-resistance levels than 
other equipment such as reactor cores.

“That’s the Achilles heel of nuclear power plants,” said Mioko Smith, 
who said it took the plant two hours to extinguish the fire. ``Today’s a 
good example of that... How prepared are they to put out fires when they 
happen?

A string of aftershocks rattled the area, including one with a 6.6 
magnitude. The Meteorological Agency warned that the aftershocks could 
continue for a week.

The quake hit on Marine Day, a national holiday in Japan, when most 
people would have been at home.

Four women and three men — all either in their 70s or 80s — were killed, 
according to the National Police Agency in Tokyo and NHK, which reported 
more than 800 people were hurt.

Nearly 300 homes in Kashiwazaki — a city known mainly for its fishing 
industry — were destroyed and some 2,000 people evacuated, officials said.

A ceiling collapsed in a gym in Kashiwazaki where about 200 people had 
gathered for a badminton tournament, and one person was hurt, Kyodo 
reported. The quake also knocked a train car off the rails while it was 
stopped at a station. No one was injured.

Several bullet train services linking Tokyo to northern and northwestern 
Japan were suspended.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — whose ruling party is trailing in the polls 
— interrupted a campaign stop in southern Japan for upcoming 
parliamentary elections, rushed back to Tokyo and announced he would 
head to the damaged area. He later arrived in a blue uniform to survey 
the damage.

“Many people told me they want to return to their normal lives as 
quickly as possible,” Abe told reporters in Kashiwazaki. “The government 
will make every effort to help with recovery.”

Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the world’s most 
earthquake-prone countries. The last major quake to hit the capital, 
Tokyo, killed some 142,000 people in 1923, and experts say the capital 
has a 90 per cent chance of suffering a major quake in the next 50 years.

In October 2004, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake hit Niigata, killing 40 
people and damaging more than 6,000 homes. It was the deadliest to hit 
Japan since 1995, when a magnitude-7.2 quake killed 6,433 people in the 
western city of Kobe.