NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation in English) has covered hundreds of natural disasters in Japan.   NHK has eight broadcasting centers, 46 local stations, 14 helicopters on permanent standby all over the country, and 460 remote-controlled cameras at ports and other key locations from which it can beam live footage at any moment.  (wow, I wish the stations I worked for here in western U.S. had that stuff!)

There’s also a hotline to the Meteorological Agency and automated access to the earthquake early warning system.  In fact NHK viewers got a 90 seconds warning before the 9.0 quake struck.

One reason why NHK is so prepared to cover disasters: NHK holds emergency broadcast drills every night at midnight.

TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) officials say sea water entering the suppression chamber (containment vessel?) might be causing the pressure build up in reactor 3.

They noticed when spraying of sea water the pressure increased, also, when they stopped the pressure went down, but it is still higher than before the sea water was sprayed.

Earlier TEPCO officials were worried about pressure building in reactor 3 containment chamber.

There were concerns that they would have release radioactive air from the chamber.

Now they say simpler attempts to relieve pressure is working, and pressure has dropped.

Japanese officials are now saying the height of the tsunami was at least 13 meters (43 feet).

Originally officials put the waves between 4 & 10 meters high.  It became clear the tsunami was higher than 10 meters when sea walls, all along the coast line at ground zero, had been crested and destroyed.  The sea walls, some of them ‘double walls’, were 10 meters high.

Many people in ground zero areas of Japan’s state of Honshu, who have not been able to evacuate, are using cars as shelter.  There are no shelters available for them.

One woman said the cars do not have enough fuel to drive, so they are running the engines periodically to use the vehicle’s heaters to keep warm.  Even if a vehicle has enough fuel to drive, all roads in and out of the area have been destroyed.

Reactor 3 has been sprayed for several hours, before spraying switched to reactor 4.  Holes had been drilled into the outer walls of reactor 4.  Water sprayed into holes for about an hour.

Radiation levels lower (officials saying it is not a “dramatic” reduction).  Water spraying throughout the night.

Spraying operations include one truck from the U.S. military, and 10 trucks from Japanese form departments.

Trying to connect power to central control room, and reactors 5 & 6. Hoped to run reactors 5 & 6 on outside power.  Reactors 3 & 4 can not be connected to outside power due to high radiation levels around the reactors.

Doctors working at overwhelmed hospitals in the tsunami hit areas of Honshu were surprised to see so many hypothermia cases.

This is because most of the medical personnel were in “earthquake survivor” mode, meaning they were expecting conditions related only to the earthquake.  They did not think about “tsunami survivors”.  It is now clear that, despite the 9.0 quake, the victims coming into shelters and hospitals are suffering from the effects of the tsunami.

The water off Japan is cold, it is winter there.  The water in the Indian Ocean, where the 2004 Sumatra tsunami hit, is much warmer so hypothermia did not become a major issue there.

Dozens of people died after being take to emergency shelters, probably from hypothermia, because the shelters were NOT prepared for what happened.