A satellite imaging (geospatial) company in Japan, PASCO, has looked at the tsunami hit areas of north east Honshu.

The images show that at least 470 square kilometers (292 square miles) of land is affected by the March 11 tsunami.

Fukushima Prefecture suffered 110 square km (68 square miles) of tsunami damage, while Iwate Prefecture has about 50 square km (31 square miles) of damage.

Miyagi Prefecture is the hardest hit: 300 square kilometers (186 square miles) of damage, and, 70% of the land is still underwater.

The water along the shore line of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has high levels of iodine-131.

Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said that iodine 131 in excess of 1,250 times regulated standards was found in the ocean 330 meters (1082.68 feet) south of a plant water outlet on Friday.

Iodine-131 has a short half life span of 8 days (radioactive strength reduced by half within 8 days).  It is the product of nuclear fission.  Finding so much iodine-131 in the ocean near the nuclear plant, is another indicator that the reactor cores are leaking.

Japan’s Prime Minister, Kan Naoto, named new people to take over the nuclear plant control and disaster control, within his cabinet.  I didn’t hear the translation clearly, as to who is taking over,  I think the names are Hosono and Magachi.   The reason for the changes is that prior officials in those cabinet posts are not experienced for a “…disaster of unprecedented scale.”

Also, some of the prior cabinet officials have brought lots of complaints to the government.

Cabinet Secretary, Edano Yukio, said they were also getting tough on the companies running the nuclear power plants.  The companies have failed to provide the government with necessary information.  Edano says it is clear that TEPCo withheld critical information from the government at the beginning of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi plant.

Edano says there is no way the government can take proper action if the corporations running nuclear plants are not honest about disaster situations.

Tokyo Electric Power Company is a private corporation.  They run many nuclear plants in Japan, along with the failing Fukushima Daiichi plant.  You’d think the corporations would have their own people to deal with things like the current disaster.

So far who’s done the most work to try and bring the nuclear plant under control?  Publicly funded agencies!  Including those from the United States! The Japanese military, the U.S. military, Japanese fire fighters, publicly funded nuclear agencies.  Some of these guys are going to die from radiation exposure! Other countries have offered help, at taxpayer expense of course.

Some corporations, other than those running the nuclear plants, have offered help.  A Vietnamese company gave Japan one of its concrete sprayers to use on the reactors.  Many of the companies involved with building the nuclear plant have rushed technicians in (like GE & Toshiba).  What happened to all of TEPCo’s personnel and equipment?  Oh yeah, they didn’t expect this disaster so they didn’t prepare (another excuse to make higher profits?).

This is a prime example of how private corporations fall way short of delivering the goods!  There are cases where private corporations just can not substitute for a taxpayer funded agency (like nuclear power plants and the military).  Over several decades I’ve seen the U.S. military contract out even combat operations, and it never works out (remember Blackwater?  how about military combat units not getting supplies because of the contractor?).

40 plus years ago the idea of contracting out government work was to save money.  Contracts were fought for by bidding on them.  Also, you contracted out jobs that were NOT national security risks (contracting out the providers of supplies to your combat troops IS a national security risk! shouldn’t contracting out the operation of your nuclear power plants be a national security risk?).

Now contractors actually end up costing the taxpayer MORE money than if the government did the job. Many contracts are no bid. In the case of one contractor, that Dick Cheney was involved in, they just walked in and said make us the contractor for this, or that!

Taxpayers in the United States, don’t think your safe from paying for the next nuclear disaster:  “Under current law, the utilities that operate nuclear power plants are responsible for a fund that pays the first $12.6 billion in damages and lawsuits resulting from any incident.”-CNN article

Think $12.6 billion will cover a nuclear disaster like Fukushima? Who pays after the $12.6 billion mark is reached? You!!!

If a private company is going to run a nuclear disaster reactor, then they better be required to have ALL the disaster response gear, & personnel, they could possibly need for the most worst case scenario, plus be financially responsible for ALL damages!

Once again private corporations screw over the consumer/taxpayer, in more ways than one!

The basement of reactor 3 is flooded with water, with radiation 10,000 times higher than “normal”.  Three workers from the Fukushima Daiichi were sent to the hospital with Beta Burns, as a result.  There is now evidence that the radioactive water came from the reactor core.

There are high levels of iodine-131 in the water. Iodine-131 is made only with nuclear fission, so it is a sign that the water came from the reactor core. Officials are now trying to determine if the core vessel is cracked, or if the water came from a damaged pipe or valve. Iodine-131 has a short half life span of 8 days, so the high levels of that isotope in the basement water indicates that it recently came from the reactor core.

Reactor 1 is now showing pools of water in the basement as well.  Reactor 2 continues to emit high levels of radiation. Reactor 2 did not suffer an explosion, so the building is intact, but, along with the high radiation leak, white smoke is coming from a window on one side of the building.

The concern that reactor cores might have been damaged by the 9.0 quake/tsunami, has caused the Japanese government to tell people outside the 20-30km zone to voluntarily evacuate, and to prepare for mandatory evacuations.  People inside the zone are still being told to stay indoors (which if you think about it is not practical, they’re going to run out of food & water).

Tokyo Electric Power Co is now using fresh water, pumped in from fire truck water tankers.

It turns out that many problems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant were being caused by salty sea water. Experts had been warning TEPCo officials to stop using sea water.

The U.S. Navy is also sending a tanker ship full of fresh water.

Japanese Cabinet Secretary, Edano Yukio, says they have “…explored all possibilities…” regarding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.  So far officials are at a loss as to where the radiation leak is coming from.

At this point they can’t tell if the leaking radiation is coming from spent fuel pools, or reactor cores.  This is why, earlier in the day, officials announced that they have no way to stop radiation leakage in the short term, and asked people to voluntarily evacuate.