Updates about Japan's Nuclear Situation

Live: Japan Earthquake - BBC News

Another quote from Japan's emperor: ''I sincerely hope that the people will overcome this unfortunate time by engendering a sense of caring for other people,'' he said in an address broadcast a short while ago.

Prices for private jets have leapt up as thousands of people trying to get out of Japan put in orders, Reuters reports. "I got a request yesterday to fly 14 people from Tokyo to Hong Kong, 5 hour 5 minutes trip. They did not care about price," Reuters quotes Jackie Wu of Hong Kong Jet as saying.

The second British rescue team (not the government team) - International Rescue Corps - is on its way back from Tokyo after the British Embassy in Tokyo refused to give them a letter of authorisation which would allow them entry into the disaster zones and enable them to get fuel. "There's an emptiness and disbelief," said Willie McMartin, IRC Operations Director. "This was the 32nd world disaster we have been to and we've only had problems twice before with host governments in China and Afghanistan. We have never encountered the position where the British embassy, our own country, came up with a show stopper."

Japan's NHK TV reports that a helicopter that is to drop water over Reactor Three will pass over the reactor many times. It says the helicopter can't stay too long over the plant because of the risk of radiation to the crew. Images of the helicopter show it scooping water from the sea into a red container similar to those used in fire-fighting operations around the world.

Turkey is advising citizens to postpone non-essential travel to Japan, Reuters reports, while Australia is advising its nationals to consider leaving Tokyo and the eight worst-affected prefectures.

Emperor Akihito also expressed concern about the continuing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant during his address.

The total number of dead or missing is now more than 11,000 Japan's NHK TV reports - the first time since WWII that so many people have been killed in Japan in a natural disaster.

A helicopter used to pour water over one of the reactors has taken off, Japanese TV reports.

A reminder that freezing weather is forecast over the coming days in Japan, making things even tougher for those made homeless by the earthquake and tsunami. Temperatures have already plunged to 0C in many of the affected areas."

The Japanese government has decided to accept the help of doctors from overseas as an exceptional measure to treat survivors of the devastating earthquake, foreign ministry officials are quoted as saying by Kyodo. The news agency says that Canada and several other countries have offered to dispatch medical teams.

Japan Tsunami and Earthquake – Live Stream Video – NHK World

A series of enormous earthquakes struck off the Pacific coast of northeastern Japan on early Friday afternoon, seismologists said, generating huge tsunamis that devastated coastlines and prompting tsunami warnings for multiple countries.

The initial 8.9-magnitude earthquake at 2.46 p.m. local time (0546 GMT) was centered about 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of Sendai in Japan, on the nation’s main island of Honshu. It struck about 24.4 kilometers (15.2 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS).

Live video stream of Earthquake in Japan

Live video stream of Japan earthquake and tsunami.
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A huge earthquake ripped across Japan today bringing devastation to a wide area and prompting fears of a massive death toll.

The 8.9 quake unleashed a 13-foot tsunami that swept boats, cars, buildings and tons of debris miles inland, and warnings were issued to all countries with Pacific coastlines to be ready for it to hit them.

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Aftermath of Tsunami in Japan

TENS of thousands of people were missing feared dead as a giant earthquake and tsunami laid waste to Japan yesterday.

More than 80,000 people were reported missing after the 8.9-magnitude quake - the world's fifth largest of all time and Japan's biggest ever.

But with huge sections of the country cut off from the outside world, fires raging and transport disrupted, officials admitted they had no way of knowing the true toll.

And as they waited for first light to assess the scale of the catastrophe, a further quake hit the stricken country.

The first giant tremor - 8000 times the strength of the one that devastated New Zealand last month - struck at 2.46pm local time off Japan's northeast coast.

Within 20 minutes, towering waves estimated at more than 30ft were crashing down along a 1300-mile stretch of the eastern coastline.

People ran for their lives as the killer waves drove a black river of debris, including ships flipped over and tossed around like toys, remorselessly inland.

Blazing houses were carried along on the flood as it raced over farmland.

One emergency worker said: "We witnessed biblical scenes. Entire communities were washed away by the water.

"Huge container ships were being tossed around as though they were matchsticks. "There was nothing that anyone could do."



The apocalyptic images on TV of powerful, debris-filled waves, uncontrolled fires and a ship caught in a massive whirlpool resembled scenes from a Hollywood disaster film.

Boats slammed against overpasses or scraped under them, snapping power lines along the way.

The tsunami roared over embankments, washing anything in its path inland before reversing direction and carrying cars, homes and other debris out to sea.

A boat carrying 80 dock workers was swept away from a shipyard in the tidal wave. The fate of those on board was unknown last night as coastguards searched for the vessel.

A massive explosion was heard at a petrochemical plant in Sendai and at the city's airport, planes and cars were scattered across the ground after the floods battered through.
japan earthquake tsunami Image 3

And hundreds of fires broke out in the east coast town of Kesennuma, south of Sendai, as gas mains were severed by the monster tremor.

The fires continued to rage into the night, with no apparent prospect of them being extinguished.

The official death toll in the disaster stood at 350 people last night - with many hundreds more injured.

But Japanese authorities fear it will rise dramatically in the coming days as the true scale of the natural disaster becomes apparent.

In 1923, Japan's worst previous quake in Kanto killed 143,000 people.

Disaster management official Hiroshi Sato, from the northern Iwate prefecture, said officials were having trouble getting an overall picture of the destruction.

"We don't even know the extent of damage. Roads were badly damaged and cut off as the tsunami washed away debris, cars and many other things," he said.

UK charities last night admitted they feared initial assessments of the scale of the Pacific tsunami's destruction were "the tip of the iceberg".

One of the dead yesterday was a sixyear-old girl who was crushed when the ceiling of a supermarket collapsed in Miyagi.

Several others died when a massive landslide hit.

In Fukushima, a dam collapsed and swept away homes after the tremor caused huge cracks to appear in the structure.

The quake was followed by a series of aftershocks - including a 7.4-magnitude tremor 30 minutes later.

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Destruction of Tsunami in Japan

The morning after Japan was struck by the most powerful earthquake to hit the island nation in recorded history and the tsunami it unleashed -- and even as the earth continued to twitch with aftershocks -- the disaster's massive impact was only beginning to be revealed.

Rescue efforts began with the first light as military helicopters plucked survivors from roofs and carried them to safety.

The 8.9-magnitude temblor, which was centered near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's east coast.

The death toll from the tsunami and earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan, was in the hundreds, but Japanese news media quoted government officials as saying that it would almost certainly rise to more than 1,000. About 200 to 300 bodies were found along the waterline in Sendai, a port city in northeastern Japan and the closest major city to the epicenter.

Thousands of homes were destroyed, many roads were impassable, trains and buses were not running, and power and cellphones remained down. On Saturday morning, the JR rail company said that there were three trains missing in parts of two northern prefectures.

While the loss of life and property may yet be considerable, many lives were certainly saved by Japan’s extensive disaster preparedness and strict construction codes. Japan’s economy was spared a more devastating blow because the earthquake hit far from its industrial heartland.

Japanese officials on Saturday issued broad evacuation orders for people living in the vicinity of two separate nuclear power plants that had experienced breakdowns in their cooling systems as a result of the earthquake, and they warned that small amounts of radiation could leak from both plants.

On Friday, at 2:46 p.m. Tokyo time, the quake struck. First came the roar and rumble of the temblor, shaking skyscrapers, toppling furniture and buckling highways. Then waves as high as 30 feet rushed onto shore, whisking away cars and carrying blazing buildings toward factories, fields and highways.

By Saturday morning, Japan was filled with scenes of desperation, as stranded survivors called for help and rescuers searched for people buried in the rubble. Kazushige Itabashi, an official in Natori City, one of the areas hit hardest by the tsunami, said several districts in an area near Sendai’s airport were annihilated.

Rescuers found 870 people in one elementary school on Saturday morning and were trying to reach 1,200 people in the junior high school, closer to the water. There was no electricity and no water for people in shelters. According to a newspaper, the Mainichi Shimbun, about 600 people were on the roof of a public grade school, in Sendai City. By Saturday morning, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and firefighters had evacuated about 150 of them.

On the rooftop of Chuo Hospital in the city of Iwanuma, doctors and nurses were waving white flags and pink umbrellas, according to TV Asahi. On the floor of the roof, they wrote “Help” in English, and “Food” in Japanese. The reporter, observing the scene from a helicopter, said, “If anyone in the City Hall office is watching, please help them.”

The station also showed scenes of people stranded on a bridge, cut off by water on both sides near the mouth of the Abukuma River in Miyagi Prefecture.

People were frantically searching for their relatives. Fumiaki Yamato, 70, was in his second home in a mountain village outside of Sendai when the earthquake struck. He spoke from his car as he was driving toward Sendai trying to find the rest of his family. While it usually takes about an hour to drive to the city, parts of the road were impassable. “I’m getting worried,” he said as he pulled over to take a reporter’s call. “I don’t know how many hours it’s going to take.”

Japanese, accustomed to frequent earthquakes, were stunned by this one’s magnitude and the more than 100 aftershocks, many equivalent to major quakes.

“I never experienced such a strong earthquake in my life,” said Toshiaki Takahashi, 49, an official at Sendai City Hall. “I thought it would stop, but it just kept shaking and shaking, and getting stronger.”

Train service was shut down across central and northern Japan, including Tokyo, and air travel was severely disrupted.

Live Footage of March 11, 2011 Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

A massive 8.9/9.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean nearby Northeastern Japan at around 2:46pm on March 11 (JST) causing damage with blackouts, fire and tsunami. On this page we are providing the information regarding the disaster and damage with realtime updates.

The large earthquake triggered a tsunami warning for countries all around the Pacific ocean.



The morning after Japan was struck by the most powerful earthquake to hit the island nation in recorded history and the tsunami it unleashed -- and even as the earth continued to twitch with aftershocks -- the disaster's massive impact was only beginning to be revealed.

Rescue efforts began with the first light as military helicopters plucked survivors from roofs and carried them to safety.

The 8.9-magnitude temblor, which was centered near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan's east coast.


"The earth shook with such ferocity," said Andy Clark, who said he had gotten used to earthquakes during his 20 years in Japan but never experienced what he felt Friday at the airport outside Tokyo. "I thought things were coming to an end ... it was simply terrifying."

Buildings shook, heaved and collapsed by the score, and numerous fires ignited.

Hundreds more people were missing, Japanese media reported, citing local and national police. Tens of thousands of people were displaced, according to Japan's Kyodo News Agency.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the "enormously powerful" earthquake had caused "tremendous damage over a wide area."

The quake, which struck at 2:46 p.m. (12:46 a.m. ET), prompted the U.S. National Weather Service to issue tsunami warnings for at least 50 countries and territories.

The epicenter of Friday's main quake was located off Miyagi Prefecture, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Also in Miyagi, officials reported that a train had derailed and authorities had lost contact with four trains in coastal areas, Kyodo reported, citing the East Japan Railway Company.

Six million households, more than 10% of the total in Japan, were without electricity, said Japan's ambassador to the United States, Ichiro Fujisaki.

In Tokyo, rail service was suspended overnight, elevated highways were shut early Saturday and surface streets remained jammed as commuters -- thousands of whom had spent the night in shelters -- tried to get to their homes in outlying areas.