Japan’s Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, says the situation in Japan is as worse as at the end of World War 2, after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan. Because of that Kan tried to unite the main political parties, starting with the main opposition party.
Officials with the Liberal Democratic Party (right wing conservatives), the main opposition party, said no. They pointed out that their party was already helping with the recover efforts, so they see no reason to unite under the PM’s office.
The tsunami destroyed most sea walls in the ground zero areas. The sea walls were ten meters tall.
Sea walls also controlled periodic flooding by the rising of normal tides. This means the areas that have lost their sea walls will suffer tidal flooding in the near future.
Japanese scientist say there is a new threat associated with tsunamis: Fire.
Thanks to our reliance on petroleum products, especially fuel, coastal cities face destruction by fire, as well as water.
Several Japanese coastal towns burned to the ground because of fires started by the tsunami. Boats, cars and fuel storage facilities hit by the tsunami, spilled fuel onto the water, catching fire, apparently by sparks from metal being clashed together in the tsunami, or electrical shorts in boats and cars.
Those fires then spread to buildings. Local fire departments discovered that water lines for fire hydrants had been destroyed by the quake/tsunami.
Hardest hit by the fires, Kesennuma, suffered intense fire. Witnesses say that fire spread throughout the city in less than 3 hours after the tsunami hit. The city was still burning 5 days later.
A nuclear safety expert in Japan admitted that no one prepares for more than one reactor failure. Multiple reactor failures have always been considered highly improbable.
NHK obtained video of last year’s emergency training at a nuclear plant in Japan. It is obvious that they did not expect anything but a low level emergency involving only one reactor.
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant officials have good news.
Reactor 5 coolant pump is now working.
Reactor 6 now has one the reactor’s back up generator working.
Japan government officials announced that efforts will be made to get stranded patients out of hospitals in the evacuation zone, as well as other people who did not have a way to self evacuate (remember Hurricane Katrina?).
Local city governments are now joining together to help each other, now that it has become clear the national government is not prepared to help them.
Just like people in the United States are justified in questioning their government’s ability to help after a natural disaster (Hurricane Katrina), the Japanese have every justification to lose faith in their government.
I’ve said this before, it is clear that the most prepared nation in the world was NOT prepared.
Officials say the water trucks sprayed about 60 tons of water, so far, on reactor 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
That isn’t going to be enough: Each spent fuel pool can hold up to 2000 tons of water, so you can see it’s going to take a lot of water (there are 6 reactors and several spent fuel pools).
Another problem is that even if they get outside power hooked to the plant, most of the power panels, and cooling pumps, have been destroyed by the tsunami. So they are now working to fix that problem as well.
NHK reporting that a convoy of concrete trucks are being prepared to head to the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Concrete was used by the Soviets during the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
NHK has been reporting that banks around Japan are limiting ATM withdrawals.
Many Japanese are angry because they are having a hard time getting access to their money, in order to buy necessities.
Banks say their clients can still walk in, during limited hours, to make larger withdrawals. The banks are blaming the disaster situation, including power outages, for the reason for limiting access to ATMs.
Just one more reason to keep your money under the mattress.
A hospital in Minami-Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, inside the zone where people have been instructed to stay indoors, more than half the hospital’s staff have evacuated. But, about 170 inpatients are still at the hospital.
“We’re reaching the limits of our ability to provide treatment,” hospital director Yukio Kanazawa said. Only a small number of hospital staff stayed behind to care for the patients.
Ohmachi Hospital staff is now less than 40%. The hospital is rationing meals for patients, two meals a day.
Doctors who normally work at Tono Hospital, cannot get there because of a fuel shortage.
Ninohe Hospital has run out of supplies, including heating fuel. “It’s as if some enemy is starving us out,” a hospital official said.
Kunihiro Mashiko, chief of the emergency treatment center of Nippon Medical School Chiba Hokusoh Hospital says “Lives that were saved once may be lost because of the shortage of both doctors and medicine.”
At Ishinomaki Hospital, tap water, electricity and gas have been cut off. Requests for help with about 120 inpatients were declined.