Wednesday, November 23, 2011

SEA Games XXVI in Indonesia (Jakarta-Palembang) 11 November 2011 - 22 November 2011

ASIA TENGGARA

LISTS OF SEA GAMES XXVI 2011MEDALION


COUNTRY
RANK
SILVER
BRONZE
TOTAL
INDONESIA
I
182
151
142
475
THAILAND
II
107
100
120
327
VIETNAM
III
96
90
101
287
MALAYSIA
IV
59
50
81
190
SINGAPORE
V
42
45
73
160
PHILIPPINES
VI
36
56
77
169
MYANMAR
VII
16
27
35
78
LAO PDR
VIII
9
12
36
57
CAMBODIA
IX
4
11
21
36
TIMOR LESTE
X
1
1
5
7
BRUNEI D
XI
0
4
7
11
TOTAL
-
552
547
702
1801
MEDAL LEFT :
552
        - 552
=
0
DAILY UPDATES:
  • Day 1: Thailand leads with 3 gold, 1 bronze. Following is Indonesia with 2 gold, 2 silvers and 1 bronze. At number three Myanmar (Burma) with 2 silvers and Singapore at number four with 1 silver, 2 bronzes. (All medals are from canoeing).
  • Day 2: (@3PM update), Singapore jumped over Thailand who was ranked #1 on the first competition day. Today Singapore is following Indonesia who tops the medals collection with 10 golds, 9 silvers and 1 bronze. But still half way to go for today’s competition. There still 28 more gold medals to be collected. @11 pm: Days two competitions completed. 43 gold medals have been delivered. Indonesia collected most of the gold medals and Tops the medal tally position. Singapore did very well today with 7 gold, 8 silvers and 8 bronzes made Singapore on the 2nd place of the daily rank. Following at Number three is Thailand.
  • Day 3:(@update 2.30pm) Indonesia still tops the medal tally followed by Thailand who replaced Singapore on the 2nd place. Amazingly Thailand swept away all the four medals available for Martial arts “Tae Kwondo“. What’s confusing up to the 3rd days is that Malaysia doesn’t seem to make any progress. I thought Malaysia is one of the favorite champions. What happening? Meanwhile, Big changes happened in the medal tally position. Singapore slipped to #4 below Vietnam and Thailand who is still on the 2nd place and entangled to Indonesia that seems to be much stronger topping the medal tally position with 40 gold, 20 silvers and 19 bronzes (update@10.30PM). Sp Note: Indonesian U-23 Football Team beats out Thailand 3-1 in the Quarter Final.
  • Day 4: No changes in Medal Tally position. Indonesia getting far far away leading the position. (@update 7.20PM), Vietnam is getting close to Thailand with only three gold differences. Timor Leste is finally earns its very first bronze medal and First Gold medal for Laos. (@update 10PM) Indonesian woman team failed to win the gold medal after defeated by Thailand in the Final badminton woman Teams.
  • Day 5: aside from the medal tally position, today two big matches will be held. First is the Final Badminton Men Teams Indonesia vs Malaysia at 15.00WIB (GMT+7), 2nd is Pra-Piala Dunia 2014 Timnas Indonesia vs Iran. In the previous match Iran beats out Indonesia 3-0. @8pm update, Indonesia beats out Malaysia 3-1 in the Final Badminton Men Teams. Indonesian TIMNAS again falls to Iran 4-1 in Pra-Piala Dunia 2014.
  • Day 6: @update 1.30PM, Vietnam replaced Thailand on the second place of medal tally position. Both countries earn same 49 gold medals but Vietnam earns more Silvers. @update 8.00PM, Malaysia moved up to #4.
  • Day 7: Indonesia still leading, followed by Vietnam and Thailand. Singapore is taking back the fourth place from Malaysia. (@update 10AM). Today’s Match! Quarter Final Individual Badminton. @Update 2PM. Indonesian pair women’s double Anneke Agustina/Nitya Krishinda beat out Malaysian Vivian Hoo/ Khe Wei in the quarter final Individual Badminton. Anneke/Krishinda is the first pair to go to Semifinal. Indonesian second best (used to be world no.1) Men’s double Markis Kido/Hendra Setiawan made it to Semifinal after defeating Thailand’s Bodin Isara/Maneepong Jongjit 21-17, 21-15 in the quarter final. @update 3.30PM. All indonesian Badminton players made it through to Semifinal Sea Games 2011. (@update 9PM) Football Sea Games Indonesia vs Malaysia. 1st round Malaysia leads 1-0. Goal maker is M. Syahrul. Indonesia for the very first time in the Sea Games 2011 failed and its to Malaysia 0-1.
  • Day 8: Semifinal Badminton, Indonesia Mixed Double Mohammad Rijal/Debby Susanto failed to make their way to the Final after beaten up by Thailand’s Sudket Prapakamol/Saralee Thoungton. Taufik Hidayat in Semifinal Men’s single failed to follow the other fellas of Indonesian to the Final.
  • Day 9: Thailand is back on the second row of the medal tally position. Vietnam is following at number three. (BADMINTON) Singapore’s Fu Mingtian won the Gold Medal Badminton Woman’s Single after defeating Adrianti Firdasary from Indonesia in the Final. (All Indonesian Final) Men’s double Markis Kido/Hendra setiawan failed to Bona Septano (Kido’s Lil’ Brother)/Muhammad Ahsan 25-23, 21-10 and woman’s double Vita Marissa/Nadya Melati failed to their junior Anneke Feinya Agustin/Nitya Krishinda. Indonesian Mixed double Ahmad Tantowi/Lilyana Natsir beat out Sudket Prapakamol/Saralee Thoughton from Thailand 21-7, 21-14. (TENNIS) Women’s Single, Ayu Fani Damayanti and Christopher Benjamin Rungkat (Men’s Single) made their way through to Final. In the final Christoper will meet Thailand’s Danai Udomchoke who defeated Alexander Elbert from Indonesia in the Semifinal. (FOOTBALL) Malaysia made it to Final after beating Myanmar 1-0. Malaysia will be meeting either Indonesia or Vietnam in the Final.(FOOTBALL) Indonesia finally beats out Vietnam 2-0. Goal makers for Indonesia are Patrich Wanggai and Titus Bonai. The Final will be a reunion between two HOT TEAMS Indonesia vs Malaysia. Meanwhile, something changed in the medal tally position Timor Leste getting up from the bottom. With 1 Gold, 1 Silver and 3 Bronzes Timor Leste is now on the 10th position.
  • Day 10: Indonesia is getting tougher on top. With only 61 gold medals left, it seems like Indonesia is locking up the overall champion this year.
  • Day 11: Indonesia finally locked up the overall champion. But this winning will not be so joyful as winning another Gold Medal from football. Indonesian “Garuda Muda” vs Malaysian Harimau Muda will do a “big fight” for the most prestigious title in the Sea Games. Meanwhile, in the battle of the 3rd place, Myanmar beats out Vietnam 4-1.
  • Day 11: The Closing Ceremony
The 26th SEA GAMES 2011 is held in Jakarta and Palembang starting November 11th, 2011 up to November 22nd, 2011.
Below is the general competition schedule of the 26th Sea Games Indonesia 2011

Captured from: Official site SEA GAMES 2011
Also have a look at the history of Sea games Champions of all time

So far, Indonesia is holding a record of a nine times champions in the Sea Games History. Following is Thailand with Five times champion, Malaysia and Vietnam share a place at number 3 with one time champion each.
Who will be the 2011 SEA GAMES champion? Will it be Thailand who was the champion in the previous Sea Games event? Or Indonesia who hosting this year event?

American Music Awards 2011



LOS ANGELES - American Music Awards 2011 event was dominated by Adele and Taylor Swift each won three awards.

Adele managed to buy up three awards namely Favorite Pop / Rock Female Artist, Favorite Pop / Rock Album through his 21-and Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist. Someone Like You 'singer unfortunately it could not accept the trophy directly, because it is still in the process of recovery after the operation some time ago his vocal cords. As reported by Aceshowbiz on Monday (11/21/2011).

In the category Favorite Pop / Rock Album, Adele managed to beat Lady Gaga and Rihanna. But specific to the category Artist of the Year, Adele should give up on Taylor Swift. The country singer won three awards, namely the Artist of the Year, Favorite Country Female Artist, and Favorite Country Album via 'Speak Now'.

In addition to Adele and Taylor Swift, singer Nicky Minaj win with two trophy for Favorite Rap / Hip-Hop Artist and Favorite Rap / Hip-Hop Album for the album 'Pink Friday' her.

Here is a list of American Music Awards 2011 winners:


Artist of the Year: Taylor Swift
Sprint New Artist of the Year: Hot Chelle Rae
Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist: Bruno Mars
Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist: Adele
Favorite Pop/Rock Band/Duo/Group: Maroon 5
Favorite Pop/Rock Album: "21" - Adele
Favorite Country Male Artist: Blake Shelton
Favorite Country Female Artist: Taylor Swift
Favorite Country band/Duo/Group: Lady Antebellum
Favorite Country Album: "Speak Now" - Taylor Swift
Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist: Usher
Favorite Soul/R&B Female Artist: Beyonce Knowles
Favorite Soul/R&B Album: "Loud" - Rihanna
Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist: Nicki Minaj
Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album: "Pink Friday" - Nicki Minaj
Favorite Alternative Artist: Foo Fighters
Favorite Adult Contemporary Artist: Adele
Favorite Latin Artist: Jennifer Lopez
Favorite Contemporary Inspirational Artist: Casting Crowns
Special Achievement Award: Katy Perry
 

The Provisional New 7 Wonders of Nature

1.Amazon
(Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela)
The Amazon Rainforest, also known as Amazonia, the Amazon jungle or the Amazon Basin, encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres), though the forest itself occupies some 5.5 million square kilometers (1.4 billion acres), located within nine nations. The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world. The Amazon River is the largest river in the world by volume, with a total flow greater than the top ten rivers worldwide combined. It accounts for approximately one-fifth of the total world river flow and has the biggest drainage basin on the planet. Not a single bridge crosses the Amazon.


2.Halong Bay
(Viet Nam)

Halong Bay is located in Quáng Ninh province, Vietnam. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes. The bay has a 120 kilometre long coastline and is approximately 1,553 square kilometres in size with 1969 islets. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves, other support floating villages of fishermen, who ply the shallow waters for 200 species of fish and 450 different kinds of mollusks. Another specific feature of Halong Bay is the abundance of lakes inside the limestone islands, for example, Dau Be island has six enclosed lakes. All these island lakes occupy drowned dolines within fengcong karst.

3. Iguazu Falls
(Argentina, Brazil)
Iguazu Falls, in Iguazu River, are one of the world's largest waterfalls. They extend over 2,700 m (nearly 2 miles)  in a semi-circular shape.  Of the 275 falls that collectively make up Iguassu Falls, "Devil's Throat" is the tallest at 80 m in height. Iguazu Falls are on the border between the Brazilian state of Paraná and the Argentine province of Misiones, and are surrounded by two National Parks (BR/ARG). Both are subtropical rainforests that are host to hundreds of rare and endangered species of flora and fauna.

4. Jeju Island
(South Korea)

Jejudo is a volcanic island, 130 km from the southern coast of Korea. The largest island and smallest province in Korea, the island has a surface area of 1,846 sqkm. A central feature of Jeju is Hallasan, the tallest mountain in South Korea and a dormant volcano, which rises 1,950 m above sea level. 360 satellite volcanoes are around the main volcano.

5. Komodo Island
(Indonesia)

Indonesia’s Komodo National Park includes the three larger islands Komodo, Rinca and Padar, as well as numerous smaller ones, for a total area of 1,817 square kilometers (603 square kilometers of it land). The national park was founded in 1980 to protect the Komodo dragon. Later, it was also dedicated to protecting other species, including marine animals. The islands of the national park are of volcanic origin.



6. Puerto Princesa Underground River
(Philippines)

The Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park is located about 50 km north of the city of Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines. It features a limestone karst mountain landscape with an 8.2 km. navigable underground river. A distinguishing feature of the river is that it winds through a cave before flowing directly into the South China Sea. It includes major formations of stalactites and stalagmites, and several large chambers. The lower portion of the river is subject to tidal influences. The underground river is reputed to be the world's longest. At the mouth of the cave, a clear lagoon is framed by ancient trees growing right to the water's edge. Monkeys, large monitor lizards, and squirrels find their niche on the beach near the cave.


7. Table Mountain
(South Africa)

Table Mountain is a South African icon and the only natural site on the planet to have a constellation of stars named after it - Mensa, meaning “the table.” The flat-topped mountain has withstood six million years of erosion and hosts the richest, yet smallest floral kingdom on earth with over 1,470 floral species. Table Mountain boasts numerous rare and endangered species. It is the most recognized site in Cape Town, the gateway to Africa, owing to its unique flat-topped peaks which reach 1,086 m above sea level.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Watch raw footage of the Japan earthquake and tsunami


An 8.9 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Northeast Japan spawned a ferocious tsunami that's caused massive destruction; flattening whole cities, starting raging fires, and killing hundreds. Nearly 88,000 people are reported missing, according to the official Kyodo news agency.
We've gathered some videos that show the scope of the disaster, and you can also see The Atlantic's collection of photos of the quake.
Here is the Website if you wanna watch it :
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theenvoy/20110311/ts_yblog_theenvoy/watch-raw-footage-of-the-japan-earthquake-and-tsunami

8 ways to help Japan after massive earthquake

The globe was rocked by the news March 11, as an 8.9 earthquake in Japan caused widespread destruction and set off a 23-foot Pacific tsunami. This has been called the fifth largest earthquake in recorded history.
More than 50 aftershocks were recorded, along with a second earthquake that measured 6.7. Hundreds were killed or injured, with many thousands reported missing.
Videos of the earthquake in Japan have been circulated online.
As the tsunami approached Hawaii and America's West Coast, U.S. President Barack Obama offered a public statement from The White House.
"This morning I spoke with Prime Minister Kan," President Obama said. "On behalf of the American people, I conveyed our deepest condolences, especially to the victims and their families, and I offered our Japanese friends whatever assistance is needed."
How can Americans help the victims of the earthquake in Japan?
Countless charities are marshalling their forces to provide humanitarian assistance after the disaster. At the same time, unethical outfits may solicit donations from well-meaning folks.
Here are eight recognized philanthropies, listed with title links, directing immediate help to those who need it most. In most cases, text message donations will appear on cell phone bills.
1. The American Red Cross has sent squads to the most heavily damaged areas of Japan to provide assistance. Cell phone users may donate $10 per message by texting REDCROSS to 90999.
2. AmeriCares is dispatching teams to Japan to offer disaster relief. Online donations are accepted on the AmeriCares website.
3. Convoy of Hope is accepting gifts online or by cell phone. Text TSUNAMI to 50555 to donate to this faith-based group, working with in-country partners to meet earthquake victims' needs.
4. Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres, is sending trained medical personnel into the worst hit areas. Online donations are encouraged.
5. Global Giving is raising funds to fund disaster relief efforts of such groups as International Medical Corps and Save the Children. Text JAPAN to 50555 to donate $10 towards emergency response.
6. The International Medical Corps offers health care and supplies for earthquake relief. Text MED to 80888, or visit the Emergency Response Efforts fund online to donate.
7. The Salvation Army is collecting donations to assist in Japan and Hawaii. Givers may donate online or text QUAKE to 80888 to give $10 per message.
8. Save the Children has established a Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund, collecting online donations to serve those affected by the earthquake and its aftermath.
Many additional humanitarian groups are poised to help. Donors are urged to check financial accountability standards of all charities before making gifts, to ensure monies will be appropriated as intended.

Massive Earthquake & Tsunami In Japan

The day after Japan’s giant earthquake has been a scary one for many of us in Japan. At 8:45p.m. Saturday evening (6:45 a.m. EST), Japan breathed a collective sigh of relief, at least for now. The government announced that the explosion at an earthquake-damaged nuclear plant is not causing radiation to leak, as had been widely feared and suspected.
The explosion occurred about 3:30 p.m. local time Saturday at a plant in Fukushima, some 100 kilometers north of Tokyo. In its aftermath, the government had been avoiding mention of how much radiation was leaking and how large an area might be affected. Instead it ordered the evacuation of those who are living within 10 kilometers of the plant, and then expand the range to 20 kilometers.
Prior to the evening announcement, there had been no information released by either the Japanese government or Tokyo Electric Power. Co., which owns and operates the nuclear plant. Meanwhile, nuclear experts from the private sector appeared on TV yelling “Don’t go out! Keep windows closed and stay at home!” It was unclear whether their advice was directed to people in Fukushima or those in a far wider area, including Tokyo with its population of 13 million.
I live in Tokyo and to be cautious I  did not allow my nine year-old daughter to go outside. Now, it appears like a worst-case scenario might be avoided. But that does not ease the pain of this country.
There is so much we don’t know yet. The tsunami that followed the earthquake hit several hundred kilometers of coastline. Officially, the death toll so far is limited to 1,000 to 1,500 people nationwide. But according to the latest reports, in the Miyagi Prefecture town of Minami-Sanriku alone, some 10,000 people are missing.
The number represents more than half of the town’s entire population. I’m sure there are a number of towns like Minami-Sanriku in the region. The death toll could easily reach five digits, and maybe six.
A photographer friend of mine called me at 10 p.m. from Chiba, a Tokyo suburb. He’d left Tokyo in early evening, heading north to shoot the aftermath of the quake, but his car got stuck in traffic before he’d gotten anywhere near the epicenter of the damage in the Sendai region. It looks unlikely that he’ll make it to his destination by morning.
My friend asked me if I’m still planning to go to the Middle East to cover the unfolding revolutions there, as I’d planned prior to the earthquake. I told him my plans were still on. I’d been with him in Iraq during the war there. I’ve been debating all day long whether I should go or not, given the devestation in my homeland. It’s a tough decision to make, not as a journalist but as a Japanese citizen. All my friend could say was “Good luck.”
The Institute for Public Accuracy issued the following statement by nuclear expert, Kevin Kamp, about the risk of nuclear disaster in post-Earthquake Japan:  “The electrical grid is down. The emergency diesel generators have been damaged. The multi-reactor Fukushima atomic power plant is now relying on battery power, which will only last around eight hours. The danger is, the very thermally hot reactor cores at the plant must be continuously cooled for 24 to 48 hours. Without any electricity, the pumps won’t be able to pump water through the hot reactor cores to cool them. Once electricity is lost, the irradiated nuclear fuel could begin to melt down. If the containment systems fail, a catastrophic radioactivity release to the environment could occur.”
“In addition to the reactor cores, the storage pool for highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel is also at risk. The pool cooling water must be continuously circulated. Without circulation, the still thermally hot irradiated nuclear fuel in the storage pools will begin to boil off the cooling water. Within a day or two, the pool’s water could completely boil away. Without cooling water, the irradiated nuclear fuel could spontaneously combust in an exothermic reaction. Since the storage pools are not located within containment, a catastrophic radioactivity release to the environment could occur. Up to 100 percent of the volatile radioactive Cesium-137 content of the pools could go up in flames and smoke, to blow downwind over large distances. Given the large quantity of irradiated nuclear fuel in the pool, the radioactivity release could be worse than the Chernobyl nuclear reactor catastrophe of 25 years ago.”
Kamps is a specialist in nuclear waste at Beyond Nuclear and conducted research last year assessing the state of nuclear facilities in Japan.
Meanwhile, Japan has ordered thousands of residents near a northeastern nuclear power plant to evacuate today following a massive earthquake that caused a problem in the plant’s cooling system, according to the Associated Press.
A ferocious tsunami unleashed by Japan’s biggest recorded earthquake slammed into its eastern coast Friday, killing hundreds of people as it carried away ships, cars and homes, and triggered widespread fires that burned out of control.
Hours later, the waves washed ashore on Hawaii and the U.S. West coast, where evacuations were ordered from California to Washington but little damage was reported. The entire Pacific had been put on alert — including coastal areas of South America, Canada and Alaska — but waves were not as bad as expected.
In northeastern Japan, the area around a nuclear power plant was evacuated after the reactor’s cooling system failed and pressure began building inside, as the government declared its first-ever state of emergency at a nuclear plant.
Police said 200 to 300 bodies were found in the northeastern coastal city of Sendai, the city in Miyagi prefecture, or state, closest to the epicenter. Another 151 were confirmed killed, with 547 missing. Police also said 798 people were injured.
The magnitude-8.9 offshore quake triggered a 23-foot (seven-meter) tsunami and was followed for hours by more than 50 aftershocks, many of them more than magnitude 6.0.
It shook dozens of cities and villages along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of coast, including Tokyo, hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the epicenter. A large section of Kesennuma, a town of 70,000 people in Miyagi, burned furiously into the night with no apparent hope of being extinguished, public broadcaster NHK said.
Scientists said the quake ranked as the fifth-largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and was nearly 8,000 times stronger than one that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month.
“The energy radiated by this quake is nearly equal to one month’s worth of energy consumption” in the United States, U.S. Geological Survey Scientist Brian Atwater told The Associated Press.
President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially “catastrophic” disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier is already in Japan, and a second is on its way. A U.S. ship was also heading to the Marianas Islands to assist as needed, he added.
As night fell and temperatures hovered just above freezing, tens of thousands of people remained stranded in Tokyo, where the rail network was still down. The streets were jammed with cars, buses and trucks trying to get out of the city.
The city set up 33 shelters in city hall, on university campuses and in government offices, but many planned to spend the night at 24-hour cafes, hotels and offices.
The government ordered about 3,000 residents near a nuclear power plant in the city of Onahama to move back at least two miles (three kilometers) from the plant. The reactor was not leaking radiation but its core remained hot even after a shutdown. The plant is 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.
Japan’s nuclear safety agency said pressure inside the reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant has risen to 1.5 times the level considered normal, and slightly radioactive vapor may be released to reduce the pressure.
The Defense Ministry said it had sent dozens of troops trained to deal with chemical disasters to the plant in case of a radiation leak.
Trouble was reported at two other nuclear plants, but there was no radiation leak at either of them.
Japan’s Nikkei.com is reporting that the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 reactor was due to a meltdown of nuclear fuel rods in its insufficiently cooled core. This was consistent with reports of radioactive cesium and iodine outside the plant. As well as the suggestion that it was a build up of hydrogen gas inside the reactor that led to the explosion earlier in the day. (You can see video of that explosion here.)
Others think the declaration of meltdown is premature. Regardless, this is a very bad nuclear accident. Far worse that Three Mile Island, but not yet in the Chernobyl league.
In a statement this afternoon, former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Peter Bradford said, “An early tipoff that Japanese authorities felt that events at Fukushima were very serious was the ordering of an evacuation within a couple of hours of the earthquake.  Though the area was small and the evacuation was called ‘precautionary,’ the fact is that ordering several thousand more people into motion during the immediate aftermath of a major earthquake and tsunami is something that no government would do if it could possibly help it.”
Despite alarmist reports, it’s unlikely that the disaster will reach the level of Chernobyl because the Fukushima reactor has a steel containment structure surrounding the nuclear fuel, and it appears that at least for now the engineers will be able to cool the fuel by pumping seawater into the reactor.
The American Nuclear Society blog has a page here with links to update sites operated by Tokyo Electric Power, the Nuclear Energy Institue and others.
World Nuclear News reports that only three of the six Fukushima reactors were in operation when the earthquake hit.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. has said it plans to vent gas from the containment structures–reducing dangerous pressures, but releasing radiation into the air.
This could prevent a worse disaster, but is still highly dangerous, even if winds blow most of the radioactive material out to sea. In an email statement this afternoon, Ira Helfand, member of Physicians for Social Responsibility writes that, “After one year of operation, a commercial nuclear reactor contains 1000 times as much radioactivity as was released by the Hiroshima bomb.  From a public health perspective, the most important isotopes are short-lived isotopes of iodine (like Iodine-131), Cesium-137, Strontium-90, and possibly Plutonium-239.  Radioactive iodine caused thousands of cases of thyroid cancer in children after the Chernobyl accident.  Cesium and strontium cause a number of different kinds of cancer and remain dangerous for hundreds of years; plutonium causes lung cancer as well as other types of cancer and remains deadly for hundreds of thousands of years.”
The anti-nuclear Nuclear Information & Resource Services states that the type of reactor used at Fukushima has been known for years to have containment weaknesses.
With this situation still in flux, it’s hard to think too far ahead right now. But it’s absolutely clear that the loss of so much nuclear power generation across Japan will result in a big uptick in demand for liquified natural gas imports.
Rebuilding reactors could be a boon for the likes of General Electric (which designed the Fukushima reactor) as well as French nuclear giant Areva. This should also be an opportunity for Westinghouse, which has designed the third-generation AP1000 reactor to shut down safely even in the event of complete loss of electric power.
Japan's nuclear safety agency is reporting an emergency at a second reactor in the same complex where an explosion had occurred earlier. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said early Sunday that the cooling system malfunctioned at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The agency said it was informed of the emergency by Tokyo Electric, the utility which runs the plant.
No further details of the troubles at Unit 3 were immediately available.
An explosion occurred at another reactor in the complex on Saturday, destroying the building housing the reactor and handing authorities an urgent complication amid rescue and relief efforts a day after Friday's earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan's northeastern coast.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
IWAKI, Japan (AP) — An explosion at a nuclear power plant on Japan's devastated coast destroyed a building Saturday and made leaking radiation, or even outright meltdown, the central threat menacing a nation just beginning to grasp the scale of a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.
The Japanese government said radiation emanating from the plant appeared to have decreased after the blast, which produced a cloud of white smoke that obscured the complex. But the danger was grave enough that officials pumped seawater into the reactor to avoid disaster and moved 170,000 people from the area.
Japan dealt with the nuclear threat as it struggled to determine the scope of the earthquake, the most powerful in its recorded history, and the tsunami that ravaged its northeast Friday with breathtaking speed and power. The official count of the dead was 686, but the government said the figure could far exceed 1,000.
Teams searched for the missing along hundreds of miles of the Japanese coast, and thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centers that were cut off from rescuers and aid. At least a million households had gone without water since the quake struck. Large areas of the countryside were surrounded by water and unreachable.


AP/Kyodo News
The explosion at the nuclear plant, Fukushima Dai-ichi, 170 miles northeast of Tokyo, appeared to be a consequence of steps taken to prevent a meltdown after the quake and tsunami knocked out power to the plant, crippling the system used to cool fuel rods there.
The blast destroyed the building housing the reactor, but not the reactor itself, which is enveloped by stainless steel 6 inches thick.
Inside that superheated steel vessel, water being poured over the fuel rods to cool them formed hydrogen. When officials released some of the hydrogen gas to relieve pressure inside the reactor, the hydrogen apparently reacted with oxygen, either in the air or the cooling water, and caused the explosion.
"They are working furiously to find a solution to cool the core," said Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Nuclear Policy Program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Nuclear agency officials said Japan was injecting seawater into the core — an indication, Hibbs said, of "how serious the problem is and how the Japanese had to resort to unusual and improvised solutions to cool the reactor core."
Officials declined to say what the temperature was inside the troubled reactor, Unit 1. At 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit, the zirconium casings of the fuel rods can react with the cooling water and create hydrogen. At 4,000 degrees, the uranium fuel pellets inside the rods start to melt, the beginning of a meltdown.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation around the plant had fallen, not risen, after the blast but did not offer an explanation. Virtually any increase in dispersed radiation can raise the risk of cancer, and authorities were planning to distribute iodine, which helps protect against thyroid cancer. Authorities moved 170,000 people out of the area within 12 miles of the reactor, said the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, citing information from Japanese officials.
It was the first time Japan had confronted the threat of a significant spread of radiation since the greatest nightmare in its history, a catastrophe exponentially worse: the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, which resulted in more than 200,000 deaths from the explosions, fallout and radiation sickness.
Officials have said that radiation levels at Fukushima were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year.
The Japanese utility that runs the plant said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital.
As Japan entered its second night since the magnitude-8.9 quake, there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said no one could find four whole trains. Others said 9,500 people in one coastal town were unaccounted for and that at least 200 bodies had washed ashore elsewhere.
The government said 642 people were missing and 1,426 injured.
Atsushi Ito, an official in Miyagi prefecture, among the worst hit states, could not confirm the figures, noting that with so little access to the area, thousands of people in scores of towns could not yet be reached.
"Our estimates based on reported cases alone suggest that more than 1,000 people have lost their lives in the disaster," Edano said. "Unfortunately, the actual damage could far exceed that number considering the difficulty assessing the full extent of damage."
Japan, among the most technologically advanced countries in the world, is well-prepared for earthquakes. Its buildings are made to withstand strong jolts — even Friday's, the strongest in Japan since official records began in the late 1800s. The tsunami that followed was beyond human control.
With waves 23 feet high and the speed of a jumbo jet, it raced inland as far as six miles, swallowing homes, cars, trees, people and anything else in its path.
"The tsunami was unbelievably fast," said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy, four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai. "Smaller cars were being swept around me. All I could do was sit in my truck."
His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city Saturday.
Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled against buildings near the local airport, several miles from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers in boats nosed through murky waters and around flooded structures.
The tsunami set off warnings across the Pacific Ocean, and waves sent boats crashing into one another and demolished docs on the U.S. West Coast. In Crescent City, Calif., near the Oregon state line, one person was swept out to sea and had not been found Saturday.
In Japan early Sunday, firefighters had yet to contain a large blaze at the Cosmo Oil refinery in the city of Ichihara. Four million households remained without power. The Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that Japan had asked for additional energy supplies from Russia.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops had joined the rescue and recovery efforts, helped by boats and helicopters. Dozens of countries offered to pitch in. President Barack Obama said one American aircraft carrier was already off Japan and a second on its way.
Aid had just begun to trickle into many areas. More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, the Japanese national police agency said.
"All we have to eat are biscuits and rice balls," said Noboru Uehara, 24, a delivery truck driver who was wrapped in a blanket against the cold at a shelter in Iwake. "I'm worried that we will run out of food."
The transport ministry said all highways from Tokyo leading to quake-stricken areas were closed, except for emergency vehicles. Mobile communications were spotty and calls to the devastated areas were going unanswered.
One hospital in Miyagi prefecture was seen surrounded by water, and the staff had painted "SOS," in English, on its rooftop and were waving white flags.
Around the nuclear plant, where 51,000 people had previously been urged to leave, others struggled to get away.
"Everyone wants to get out of the town. But the roads are terrible," said Reiko Takagi, a middle-aged woman, standing outside a taxi company. "It is too dangerous to go anywhere. But we are afraid that winds may change and bring radiation toward us."
Although the government played down fears of radiation leak, Japanese nuclear agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo acknowledged there were still fears of a meltdown — the collapse of a power plant's systems, rendering it unable regulate temperatures and keep the reactor fuel cool.
Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said it was unlikely that the Japanese plant would suffer a meltdown like the one in 1986 at Chernobyl, when a reactor exploded and sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor, unlike the reactor at Fukushima, was not housed in a sealed container.
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Kageyama reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Jay Alabaster in Sendai, Sylvia Hui in London, David Nowak in Moscow, and Margie Mason in Hanoi also contributed.
Inside the troubled nuclear power plant, officials knew the risks were high when they decided to vent radioactive steam from a severely overheated reactor vessel. They knew a hydrogen explosion could occur, and it did. The decision still trumped the worst-case alternative — total nuclear meltdown.
At least for the time being.
The chain of events started Friday when a magnitude-8.9 earthquake and tsunami severed electricity to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, crippling its cooling system. Then, backup power did not kick in properly at one of its units.
From there, conditions steadily worsened, although government and nuclear officials initially said things were improving. Hours after the explosion, they contended that radiation leaks were reduced and that circumstances had gotten better at the 460-megawatt Unit 1. But crisis after crisis continued to develop or be revealed.
Without power, and without plant pipes and pumps that were destroyed in the explosion of the most-troubled reactor's containment building, authorities resorted to drawing seawater in an attempt to cool off the overheated uranium fuel rods.
Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and former senior policy adviser to the U.S. secretary of energy, said in a briefing for reporters that the seawater was a desperate measure.
"It's a Hail Mary pass," he said.
He said that the success of using seawater and boron to cool the reactor will depend on the volume and rate of their distribution. He said the dousing would need to continue nonstop for days.
Another key, he said, was the restoration of electrical power, so that normal cooling systems can be restored.
Officials placed Dai-ichi Unit 1, and four other reactors, under states of emergency Friday because operators had lost the ability to cool the reactors using usual procedures.
An additional reactor was added to the list early Sunday, for a total of six — three at the Dai-ichi complex and three at another nearby complex. Local evacuations have been ordered at each location. Japan has a total of 55 reactors spread across 17 complexes nationwide.
Officials began venting radioactive steam at Fukushima Dai-ichi's Unit 1 to relieve pressure inside the reactor vessel, which houses the overheated uranium fuel.
Concerns escalated dramatically Saturday when that unit's containment building exploded.
It turned out that officials were aware that the steam contained hydrogen, acknowledged Shinji Kinjo, spokesman for the government Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. More importantly, they also were aware they were risking an explosion by deciding to vent the steam.
The significance of the hydrogen began to come clear late Saturday:
_Officials decided to reduce rising pressure inside the reactor vessel, so they vented some of the steam buildup. They needed to do that to prevent the entire structure from exploding, and thus starting down the road to a meltdown.
_At the same time, in order to keep the reactor fuel cool, and also prevent a meltdown, operators needed to keep circulating more and more cool water on the fuel rods.
_Temperature in the reactor vessel apparently kept rising, heating the zirconium cladding that makes up the fuel rod casings. Once the zirconium reached 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 Celsius), it reacted with the water, becoming zirconium oxide and hydrogen.
_When the hydrogen-filled steam was vented from the reactor vessel, the hydrogen reacted with oxygen, either in the air or water outside the vessel, and exploded.
A similar "hydrogen bubble" had concerned officials at the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in Pennsylvania until it dissipated.
If the temperature inside the Fukushima reactor vessel continued to rise even more — to roughly 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 Celsius) — then the uranium fuel pellets would start to melt.
According to experts interviewed by The Associated Press, any melted fuel would eat through the bottom of the reactor vessel. Next, it would eat through the floor of the already-damaged containment building. At that point, the uranium and dangerous byproducts would start escaping into the environment.
At some point in the process, the walls of the reactor vessel — 6 inches (15 centimeters) of stainless steel — would melt into a lava-like pile, slump into any remaining water on the floor, and potentially cause an explosion much bigger than the one caused by the hydrogen. Such an explosion would enhance the spread of radioactive contaminants.
If the reactor core became exposed to the external environment, officials would likely began pouring cement and sand over the entire facility, as was done at the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Ukraine, Peter Bradford, a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a briefing for reporters.
At that point, Bradford added, "many first responders would die."
Japan's top government spokesman says a partial meltdown is likely under way at second reactor affected by Friday's massive earthquake.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Sunday that radiation at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima briefly rose above legal limits, but it has since declined significantly.
Three reactors at the plant lost their cooling functions in the aftermath of quake and tsunami because of a power outage.
Some 170,000 people have been ordered to evacuate the area within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the plant.
The plant is 170 miles (270 kilometers) north of Tokyo.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
IWAKI, Japan (AP) — Cooling systems failed at another nuclear reactor on Japan's devastated coast Sunday, hours after an explosion at a nearby unit made leaking radiation, or even outright meltdown, the central threat to the country following a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami.
The Japanese government said radiation emanating from the plant appeared to have decreased after Saturday's blast, which produced a cloud of white smoke that obscured the complex. But the danger was grave enough that officials pumped seawater into the reactor to avoid disaster and moved 170,000 people from the area.
Japan's nuclear safety agency then reported an emergency at another reactor unit, the third in the complex to have its cooling systems malfunction. To try to release pressure from the overheating reactor, authorities released steam that likely contained small amounts of radiation, the government said.
Japan dealt with the nuclear threat as it struggled to determine the scope of the earthquake, the most powerful in its recorded history, and the tsunami that ravaged its northeast Friday with breathtaking speed and power. The official count of the dead was 763, but the government said the figure could far exceed 1,000.
Teams searched for the missing along hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the Japanese coast, and thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centers that were cut off from rescuers and aid. At least a million households had gone without water since the quake struck. Large areas of the countryside were surrounded by water and unreachable. Some 2.5 million households were without electricity.
Powerful aftershocks continued to rock the country, including one Sunday with a magnitude of 6.2 that originated in the sea, about 111 miles (179 kilometers) east of Tokyo. It swayed buildings in the capital, but there were no reports of injuries or damage.
The explosion at the nuclear plant, Fukushima Dai-ichi, 170 miles (274 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, appeared to be a consequence of steps taken to prevent a meltdown after the quake and tsunami knocked out power to the plant, crippling the system used to cool fuel rods there.
The blast destroyed the building housing the reactor, but not the reactor itself, which is enveloped by stainless steel 6 inches (15 centimeters) thick.
Inside that superheated steel vessel, water being poured over the fuel rods to cool them formed hydrogen. When officials released some of the hydrogen gas to relieve pressure inside the reactor, the hydrogen apparently reacted with oxygen, either in the air or the cooling water, and caused the explosion.
"They are working furiously to find a solution to cool the core," said Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Nuclear Policy Program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Nuclear agency officials said Japan was injecting seawater into the core — an indication, Hibbs said, of "how serious the problem is and how the Japanese had to resort to unusual and improvised solutions to cool the reactor core."
Officials declined to say what the temperature was inside the troubled reactor, Unit 1. At 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 degrees Celsius), the zirconium casings of the fuel rods can react with the cooling water and create hydrogen. At 4,000 Fahrenheit (2,200 Celsius), the uranium fuel pellets inside the rods start to melt, the beginning of a meltdown.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said radiation around the plant had fallen, not risen, after the blast but did not offer an explanation. Virtually any increase in dispersed radiation can raise the risk of cancer, and authorities were planning to distribute iodine, which helps protect against thyroid cancer. Authorities ordered 210,000 people out of the area within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the reactor.
Among those waiting to leave was Reiko Takagi, a middle-aged woman standing outside a taxi company in Iwaki, about 19 miles (30 kilometers) from the nuclear plant.
"Everyone wants to get out of the town. But the roads are terrible," Takagi said. "It is too dangerous to go anywhere. But we are afraid that winds may change and bring radiation toward us."
It was the first time Japan had confronted the threat of a significant spread of radiation since the greatest nightmare in its history, a catastrophe exponentially worse: the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, which resulted in more than 200,000 deaths from the explosions, fallout and radiation sickness.
Officials have said that radiation levels at Fukushima were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year.
The Japanese utility that runs the plant said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital. Nine residents of a town near the plant who later evacuated the area tested positive for radiation exposure, though officials said they showed no health problems.
Two days after the magnitude 8.9 quake, there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said no one could find four whole trains. Others said 9,500 people in one coastal town were unaccounted for and that at least 200 bodies had washed ashore elsewhere.
The government said 642 people were missing and 1,426 injured.
Atsushi Ito, an official in Miyagi prefecture, among the worst-hit states, could not confirm the figures, noting that with so little access to the area, thousands of people in scores of towns could not yet be reached.
"Our estimates based on reported cases alone suggest that more than 1,000 people have lost their lives in the disaster," Edano said. "Unfortunately, the actual damage could far exceed that number considering the difficulty assessing the full extent of damage."
Japan, among the most technologically advanced countries in the world, is well-prepared for earthquakes. Its buildings are made to withstand strong jolts — even Friday's, the strongest in Japan since official records began in the late 1800s. The tsunami that followed was beyond human control.
With waves 23 feet (7 meters) high and the speed of a jumbo jet, it raced inland as far as six miles (10 kilometers), swallowing homes, cars, trees, people and anything else in its path.
"The tsunami was unbelievably fast," said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy, four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai. "Smaller cars were being swept around me. All I could do was sit in my truck."
His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city Saturday.
Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled against buildings near the local airport, several miles (kilometers) from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers in boats nosed through murky waters and around flooded structures.
The tsunami set off warnings across the Pacific Ocean, and waves sent boats crashing into one another and demolished docks on the U.S. West Coast. In Crescent City, California, near the Oregon state line, one person was swept out to sea and had not been found Saturday.
In Japan early Sunday, firefighters had yet to contain a large blaze at the Cosmo Oil refinery in the city of Ichihara. Four million households remained without power. The Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that Japan had asked for additional energy supplies from Russia.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 100,000 troops had joined the rescue and recovery efforts, helped by boats and helicopters. Dozens of countries offered to pitch in. President Barack Obama said one American aircraft carrier was already off Japan and a second on its way.
Two other U.S. rescue teams of 72 personnel each and rescue dogs were scheduled to arrive later Sunday, as was a five-dog team from Singapore.
Aid had just begun to trickle into many areas. More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, the Japanese national police agency said.
"All we have to eat are biscuits and rice balls," said Noboru Uehara, 24, a delivery truck driver who was wrapped in a blanket against the cold at a shelter in Iwake. "I'm worried that we will run out of food."
The transport ministry said all highways from Tokyo leading to quake-stricken areas were closed, except for emergency vehicles. Mobile communications were spotty and calls to the devastated areas were going unanswered.
Although the government played down fears of radiation leak, Japanese nuclear agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo acknowledged there were still fears of a meltdown — the collapse of a power plant's systems, rendering it unable regulate temperatures and keep the reactor fuel cool.
Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said it was unlikely that the Japanese plant would suffer a meltdown like the one in 1986 at Chernobyl, when a reactor exploded and sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor, unlike the reactor at Fukushima, was not housed in a sealed container.
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Kageyama reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Jay Alabaster in Sendai, Sylvia Hui in London, David Nowak in Moscow, and Margie Mason in Hanoi also contributed.
Japan mobilised 50,000 military and other rescue personnel Saturday to spearhead a Herculean rescue and recovery effort, a day after being hit by its most devastating quake and tsunami on record.
Every wing of the Self Defence Forces was thrown into frantic service, with hundreds of ships, aircraft and vehicles headed to the Pacific coast area where at least 1,000 people were feared dead and entire neighbourhoods had vanished.
International search and rescue teams also rushed to the devastated country, some fresh from work in quake-hit New Zealand -- including a 63-strong Japanese team that spent two weeks helping after the 6.3-magnitude Christchurch quake.
As emergency staff in Japan dug through rubble and plucked survivors off the roofs of submerged houses, Prime Minister Naoto Kan warned that day one after the catastrophe was a crucial window for survivors.
"I realised the huge extent of the tsunami damage," the centre-left premier said after taking a helicopter tour of the apocalyptic scenes in the northeast before meeting his cabinet ministers for an emergency meeting in Tokyo.
"What used to be residential areas were mostly swept away in many coastal areas and fires are still blazing there," he told them.
The United States, with almost 50,000 troops stationed in Japan, ordered a flotilla including two aircraft carriers to the region to provide aid -- just one of scores of nations that have offered help since Friday's monster quake.
US forces on Friday helped Japan rapidly react by delivering a cooling agent to a nuclear plant where malfunctions threatened a dangerous meltdown.
In the utter bleakness on the east coast of Japan's main Honshu island, where at least 3,600 houses were destroyed by the 8.9-magnitude quake, there were some rays of hope amid the carnage of smashed towns and shattered lives.
Army helicopters airlifted people off the roof of an elementary school in Watari, Miyagi prefecture, and naval and coastguard choppers did the same to rescue 81 people from a ship that had been hurled out to sea by the tsunami.
But for every piece of good news, there were more reminders of nature's cruelty against this seismically unstable nation -- including the latest of a series of strong aftershocks in the morning, measuring a hefty 6.8.
In large coastal areas, entire neighbourhoods were destroyed, with unknown numbers of victims buried in the rubble of their homes or lost to the sea, where cars, shipping containers, debris and entire houses were afloat.
The coastal city of Rikuzentakata in Iwate prefecture was almost completely destroyed and submerged, said the Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
Some 300-400 bodies were recovered in the city of 23,000 people, NHK quoted the military as saying, while police reportedly said 200-300 bodies had been found in the city of Sendai.
In the quake-hit areas, 5.6 million households had no power Saturday and more than one million households were without water.
Japan's military started its mass deployment Friday, when it dispatched 300 planes and an armada of 20 naval destroyers and other ships, while some 25 air force jets flew reconnaissance missions over the vast disaster zone.
The Tokyo and Osaka police forces and the health ministry also all quickly dispatched medical and rescue teams.
Among the international help pledged, a team from South Korea, with five rescue personnel and two sniffer dogs, jetted in.
Japan said it had been offered help by scores of governments -- among them China, with whom Tokyo has sometimes awkward relations.
The United States, which occupied Japan after World War II and is the country's main security ally, has many of its forces stationed on the southern island of Okinawa, far from the quake zone.
Two aircraft carriers were en route to the disaster zone -- the USS George Washington, which is based near Tokyo, and the USS Ronald Reagan, which was on its way to South Korea for exercises and has been redirected.


Blast at Japan nuke plant, thousands missing

IWAKI, Japan -- An explosion shattered a building housing a nuclear reactor Saturday, amid fears of a meltdown, while across wide swaths of northeastern Japan officials searched for thousands of people missing more than a day after a devastating earthquake and tsunami.
The confirmed death toll from Friday's twin disasters was 686, but the government's chief spokesman said it could exceed 1,000. Devastation stretched hundreds of miles (kilometers) along the coast, where thousands of hungry survivors huddled in darkened emergency centers cut off from rescuers, electricity and aid.
The scale of destruction was not yet known, but there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said four whole trains had disappeared Friday and still not been located. Others said 9,500 people in one coastal town were unaccounted for and that at least 200 bodies had washed ashore elsewhere.
Atsushi Ito, an official in Miyagi prefecture, among the worst hit states, could not confirm those figures, noting that with so little access to the area, thousands of people in scores of town could not be contacted or accounted for.
"Our estimates based on reported cases alone suggest that more than 1,000 people have lost their lives in the disaster," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said. "Unfortunately, the actual damage could far exceed that number considering the difficulty assessing the full extent of damage."
Among the most worrying developments was concerns that a nuclear reacter could melt down. Edano said Saturdya's explosion was caused by vented hydrogen gas and destroyed the exterior walls of the building where the reactor is, but not the actual metal housing enveloping the reactor.
Edano said the radiation around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had not risen after the blast, but had in fact decreased.
Three people being evacuated from an area near the plant have been exposed to radiation, Yoshinori Baba, a Fukushima prefectural disaster official, confirmed. But he said they showed no signs of illness.
Virtually any increase in ambient radiation can raise long-term cancer rates, and authorities were planning to distribute iodine, which helps protect against thyroid cancer.
Authorities have also evacuated people from a 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius around the reactor.
The explosion was caused by hydrogen interacting with oxygen outside the reactor. The hydrogen was formed when the superheated fuel rods came in contact with water being poured over it to prevent a meltdown.
"They are working furiously to find a solution to cool the core, and this afternoon in Europe we heard that they have begun to inject sea water into the core," said Mark Hibbs, a senior associate at the Nuclear Policy Program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "That is an indication of how serious the problem is and how the Japanese had to resort to unusual and improvised solutions to cool the reactor core."
Officials have said that radiation levels were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year.
The explosion was preceded by puff of white smoke that gathered intensity until it became a huge cloud enveloping the entire facility, located in Fukushima, 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Iwaki. After the explosion, the walls of the building crumbled, leaving only a skeletal metal frame.
Tokyo Power Electric Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital.
The trouble began at the plant's Unit 1 after the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it spawned knocked out power there, depriving it of its cooling system.
Power was knocked out by the quake in large areas of Japan, which has requested increased energy supplies from Russia, Russia's RIA Novosti agency reported.
The concerns about a radiation leak at the nuclear power plant overshadowed the massive tragedy laid out along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of the coastline where scores of villages, towns and cities were battered by the tsunami, packing 23-feet (7-meter) high waves.
It swept inland about six miles (10 kilometers) in some areas, swallowing boats, homes, cars, trees and everything else.
"The tsunami was unbelievably fast," said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai.
"Smaller cars were being swept around me," he said. "All I could do was sit in my truck."
His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city on Saturday.
Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled up against buildings near the local airport, several miles (kilometers) from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers coasted on boats through murky waters around flooded structures, nosing their way through a sea of debris.
Late Saturday night, firefighters had yet to contain a large blaze at the Cosmo Oil refinery in the city of Ichihara.
According to official figures, 642 people are missing and missing 1,426 injured.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops joined rescue and recovery efforts, aided by boats and helicopters. Dozens of countries also offered help.
President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially "catastrophic" disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier was already in Japan and a second was on its way.
More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, the national police agency said.
Aid has barely begun to trickle into many areas.
"All we have to eat are biscuits and rice balls," said Noboru Uehara, 24, a delivery truck driver who was wrapped in a blanket against the cold at center in Iwake. "I'm worried that we will run out of food."
Since the quake, more than 1 million households have not had water, mostly concentrated in northeast. Some 4 million buildings were without power.
About 24 percent of electricity in Japan is produced by 55 nuclear power units in 17 plants and some were in trouble after the quake.
Japan declared states of emergency at two power plants after their units lost cooling ability.
Although the government spokesman played down fears of radiation leak, the Japanese nuclear agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo acknowledged there were still fears of a meltdown.
A "meltdown" is not a technical term. Rather, it is an informal way of referring to a very serious collapse of a power plant's systems and its ability to manage temperatures.
Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said a Chernobyl-style meltdown was unlikely.
"It's not a fast reaction like at Chernobyl," he said. "I think that everything will be contained within the grounds, and there will be no big catastrophe."
In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded and caught fire, sending a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor - unlike the Fukushima one - was not housed in a sealed container, so there was no way to contain the radiation once the reactor exploded.
The reactor in trouble has already leaked some radiation: Before the explosion, operators had detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.
An evacuation area around the plant was expanded to a radius of 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the six miles (10 kilometers) before. People in the expanded area were advised to leave quickly; 51,000 residents were previously evacuated.
"Everyone wants to get out of the town. But the roads are terrible," said Reiko Takagi, a middle-aged woman, standing outside a taxi company. "It is too dangerous to go anywhere. But we are afraid that winds may change and bring radiation toward us."
The transport ministry said all highways from Tokyo leading to quake-hit areas were closed, except for emergency vehicles. Mobile communications were spotty and calls to the devastated areas were going unanswered.
Local TV stations broadcast footage of people lining up for water and food such as rice balls. In Fukushima, city officials were handing out bottled drinks, snacks and blankets. But there were large areas that were surrounded by water and were unreachable.
One hospital in Miyagi prefecture was seen surrounded by water. The staff had painted an SOS on its rooftop and were waving white flags.
Technologically advanced Japan is well prepared for quakes and its buildings can withstand strong jolts, even a temblor like Friday's, which was the strongest the country has experienced since official records started in the late 1800s. What was beyond human control was the killer tsunami that followed.
Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 temblor in Kanto that killed 143,000 people in 1923, according to the USGS. A magnitude 7.2 quake in Kobe killed 6,400 people in 1995.
Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" - an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.
Kageyama reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Jay Alabaster in Sendai, Sylvia Hui in London, David Nowak in Moscow, and Margie Mason in Hanoi also contributed.



Five games that will shine on your new iPad 2


New hardware inside the iPad 2 changes the playing field for games on tablet computers. This is a very good thing for both serious gamers and casual players.
Features like the gyroscope (which enables 360-degree motion control), a rear-facing camera and a faster A5 dual-core processor introduce capabilities only previously available on the iPhone 4. We had the chance to demo the iPad 2 after its unveiling in San Francisco to get a first-hand look at how some of our favorite games will be transformed.
Here are five classic games that will be made new again on the iPad 2.

Real Racing 2 HD $9.99

Firemint’s ambitious racing game is among the most technologically advanced titles available on any device. The iPhone version allows for 16-player online races, as well as a similar single-player mode. And while Firemint was working on an iPad-compatible version in Real Racing 2 HD (just like it did with the original Real Racing), the developer wasn’t planning to do much in the way of altering the core of the game. That is until it saw the iPad 2 and what it was capable of creating. Today Firemint unveiled a version of the game specific to the iPad 2 that takes advantage of the A5 chip’s purported nine-times increase in graphical capabilities. After seeing the iPad 2 in action, it’s likely that Firemint’s expanded Real Racing 2 HD iPad app could be the best-looking game on the platform. Owners of the original iPad should also see improved performance.

N.O.V.A. 2 - Near Orbital Vanguard Alliance HD $6.99

The iPad version of Gameloft’s sci-fi first-person shooter was somewhat lacking in comparison to its iPhone counterpart. The game’s graphics struggle a bit on the original  iPad with frame rate issues that occur due to slower processing speed. Even though its 3D world looks pretty great, it seems to work better on an iPhone. Another major difference was the game's control scheme. On the iPhone, players are able to take advantage of the internal hardware to aim using the gyroscope, by actually moving the device around in 3D space like they were holding a window, which would adjust their aim. The iPad wasn't capable of doing that – but the iPad 2 is. I got a chance to mess around with N.O.V.A. 2, and the gyroscope aiming scheme was indeed available. This feature turned the iPad 2 into a giant display that helped me put my gun on huge aliens and take them out. The graphics were seamlessly handled by the A5 processor as well. N.O.V.A. 2 will be a totally different experience for iPad 2 owners over what was seen on the original iPad, and it also demonstrates the possibilities present for other first-person shooters that use this same control scheme.

Infinity Blade $5.99

The graphical powerhouse that is the A5 chip does a beautiful job with a game that requires a lot of visual muscle. Infinity Blade is the first iOS game that uses Epic Games’ heavy hitting Unreal Engine 3, a graphical engine used in PC and console video games. Infinity Blade looks great on the iPhone 4, but with the serious disadvantage of having some frame rate issues and general graphical slowdown. All of that was eliminated when we played Infinity Blade in person at the iPad 2 announcement event. Infinity Blade and its massive new content update, The Deathless Kings, looked absolutely great and didn't seem to suffer from any graphics issues. This is one of those games that defines the platform and gives new owners something amazing to show to friends. It's also a good indication of iPad 2 games to come – Epic Games' Mark Rein recently mentioned that he thought the iPad 2 was a strong gaming contender, and the updated tablet is capable of doing some great things with the Unreal Engine. Epic Games also released a new update this week that “includes high-resolution graphics that utilize the enhanced visual capabilities of the iPad 2″.

Zen Bound 2 $2.99

Soothing puzzler Zen Bound 2 works on the current iPad, but not really the way it was meant to be played. The game has you carefully wrapping rope around three-dimensional wooden objects. Each time the rope touches the object, it spreads paint over the surface, and the goal is to paint as much of the object as possible. On the iPhone 4, this is done with gyroscope controls, by actually twisting and moving the iPhone around in space to simulate moving the wooden object to wrap the rope around it. On the iPad 2, this control scheme is now possible, making the experience a whole lot more enjoyable. Zen Bound 2 also demonstrates the other kinds of physics games that are now possible thanks to the iPad 2's gyroscope.

Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner $2.99

My favorite augmented reality game just became an iPad 2 title, thanks to the device’s new rear-facing camera. That additional camera now means you can play games that use it to incorporate the landscape around you into the game you’re playing. In the case of Falcon Gunner, that means you’ll battle Imperial TIE fighters flying around your kitchen, your living room, your bathroom and your back yard. Coupled with the gyroscope, you can actually sit in a swiveling chair and replicate the experience of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo fighting off enemy fighters as they escape the Death Star (if that’s your thing -- and it’s definitely mine). Augmented reality wasn’t possible on the original iPad, but it’s certainly possible now. That means a host of new games will have players glued to their iPad 2s and waving them around in the air, fighting things that are otherwise invisible.