Disasters put stress on children in Japan

Twenty-two-year-old mother Yoko Kamata sits with her baby Yuzuyu (left) and son Seiga (right) at a shelter in Kamaishi city in Iwate prefecture. -- PHOTO: AFP

KARAKUWA (Japan) - ZOOM in for a snapshot of apparent normalcy: children sitting in a circle, clasping playing cards tightly in their hands. They laugh, chat and occasionally hop up to break into a goofy dance.

Zoom out and the picture changes: The children are kneeling on mattresses in a chilly classroom they now call home. An elderly woman cries nearby, wondering whether her mother was killed by Japan's tsunami. Outside the school, a teacher fiddles with a radiation detector, checking to ensure the levels aren't high enough to make them sick - or worse.

Behind the smiling faces of thousands of children in shelters across this wave-battered wasteland, experts say there is often serious anxiety as everything these youngsters once held as normal is suddenly anything but.

'That's what is so wonderfully adaptive about children. They can move very easily into playing or laughing,' says psychologist Susie Burke, a disaster response specialist with the Australian Psychological Society. 'But that's not saying they're not deeply distressed and upset about what's going on.'

Reminders of the tiniest victims are scattered throughout the wreckage: a little girl's white shoe caked in mud, a red rubber ball coated in dust, a sodden comic book whose ink has run.

As many as 25,000 people may have been killed in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan's north-east coast and damaged a nuclear plant, sending radiation spewing into the environment. Tens of thousands are still living in shelters. -- AP

Two tsunami victims found at Japan nuclear plant

Tepco said in a statement: 'We extremely regret losing the two young employees who tried to secure the safety of the plant while it was being hit by the quake and tsunami.' -- PHOTO: AP

TOKYO - THE bodies of two workers killed when a tsunami hit Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant more than three weeks ago have been found and recovered, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) said on Sunday.

A Tepco official cited physicians as saying Mr Kazuhiko Kokubo, 24, and Mr Yoshiki Terashima, 21 had died of bleeding from multiple injuries.

The utility said their remains had been found last Wednesday in the reactor four turbine building of the Fukushima plant, where the tsunami knocked out cooling systems and sparked an emergency that has released high radiation.

Their bodies required decontamination from radioactive materials, and they were only formally declared as deceased on Saturday, it said.

Tepco said in a statement: 'We extremely regret losing the two young employees who tried to secure the safety of the plant while it was being hit by the quake and tsunami.'

The crippled plant is continuing to release radiation into the air, ground and sea in Japan's worst ever nuclear crisis. -- AFP

Post-tsunami, Japan town mulls over whether to rebuild

MINAMISANRIKU (Japan) - THE only thing left of Minamisanriku City Hall are its two front steps.

Nearby, a pink octopus lies dead in a pool of sea water, its tentacles wrapped around a crumpled sheet of corrugated aluminum that may have been a roof, a gate, a wall. Beside it, a broken tarmac road runs as far as the eye can see through fields of demolished houses and debris.

As post-tsunami Japan turns to the enormous task of putting towns like this back together, the sheer extent of the devastation wrought March 11 raises existential questions: Should the dozens of shattered communities along these shores be rebuilt at all?

Can they be, when up to half their inhabitants are gone and survivors know it could happen again? 'The future is not bright,' Jin Sato, the 56-year-old mayor of Minamisanriku, says matter-of-factly.

The statistics for this town alone are grim. Of the 17,666 people who once lived here, at least 322 have been confirmed dead and thousands more have disappeared, still buried in the ruins or sucked out to sea. Another 9,325 lost their homes and live in 45 shelters, mostly schools, spread on hills along the bay.

The tsunami swept away nearly every business, every job. There is no electricity or running water, and very little fuel. Some 70 per cent of Minamisanriku's 5,574 houses were destroyed. Inside a hilltop sports arena that serves as shelter, morgue and makeshift office, Mr Sato sits red-eyed behind a small desk. 'Whatever happens,' he says, 'we're going to need a lot of help.' -- AP

Japan's tsunami-hit airport 'back in three weeks'

SENDAI - THREE weeks after Japan's massive tsunami swamped this once-bustling airport, US airmen working to restore it say commercial flights could soon resume.

Hundreds of cars, several planes and even houses were washed onto the runway at Sendai International Airport when the huge waves of March 11 engulfed the country's north-east coast.

The terminal building was flooded and fires erupted in the car park and in aircraft hangars.

Passengers were left stranded on the upper floors for two days, and staff were forced to flee to the roof of an administrative building.

CCTV footage posted on video sharing site YouTube, showing the debris-cluttered waters swallowing up the runway, has been watched more than 17 million times and become one of the defining images of the nation's tragedy.

With roads washed away or impassable, the crippling of the airport badly hampered relief efforts. 

Supplies and fuel could not get to the area where 28,000 people are dead or missing, leaving rescue teams unable to work in some of the hardest-hit towns. -- AFP

Contamination at Fukushima plant to last 'decades'

PARIS - LOCAL contamination from Japan's quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant will be a problem that will last 'for decades and decades,' France's Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) said on Monday.

Releases of radioactivity from the plant 'are now significant and continuing,' the head of the agency, Andre-Claude Lacoste, told a press conference.

'We have to assume that Japan will have a long-term issue of managing the impacts,' he said. 'It's a problem that Japan will have to deal with for decades and decades to come.' The releases stem in part from deliberate venting of steam and gas, which also contain radioactive particles, to ease pressure in overheating reactor vessels, he said. Another source is 'leaks' of as-yet unknown origin, he said.

'Ground deposits of radioactive particles (around the plant) are significant,' said Jean-Luc Godet, in charge of ionising radiation management at the ASN.

'The Japanese authorities have not drawn up, or communicated, a map of these deposits, and it is not vain thinking to believe that this (contaminated) zone extends beyond 20 kilometres,' he said, referring to the 12-mile zone within which local inhabitants have been evacuated.

On Sunday, the Japanese government said it had detected 'abnormal levels' of radiation in milk and spinach taken from areas near Fukushima, but this did not pose any threat to health. -- AFP

Toll from Japan disasters over 7,700

TOKYO - JAPAN'S police agency says 7,700 are dead and more than 11,600 are missing after last week's earthquake and tsunami.

A week after the disasters devastated the northeast coast, the National Police Agency said Sunday that 7,700 people died and 11,651 were missing.

Some of the missing may have been out of the region at the time of the disaster. In addition, the massive power of the tsunami likely sucked many people out to sea. If the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is any guide, most of those bodies will not be found. -- AP

Indonesian man escapes Aceh and Japan tsunamis

JAKARTA - AN INDONESIAN man said on Thursday that he had escaped both the 2004 tsunami in Aceh and last week's wave in Japan.

Doctoral student Zahrul Fuadi, 39, who is from the Indonesian province, was at a seminar at a university campus in Sendai when a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck, triggering a tsunami that devastated Japan's north-eastern coast.

Seven years ago, the engineer had to flee from the wall of water that killed 168,000 people in his own country.

'I have survived two monumental disasters. I'm very grateful, not many people have experienced two big disasters and survived,' Mr Fuadi told AFP.

His house in Simpang Mesra village, Banda Aceh, was destroyed in the 2004 disaster, which followed a 9.3-magnitude quake.

Then, he said, 'we were at my house when the quake happened. Me, my wife and my two children escaped from the tsunami by riding a motorcycle. We went very far from my house because we were so afraid. -- AFP

Three US charities raise $65m for Japan quake

WASHINGTON - THREE US charities said Wednesday they have raised more than US$51 million (S$65.4 million) for Japan five days after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated the north-east of the country.

Leading the way among the charities contacted by AFP was the American Red Cross, which raised US$47 million for Japan quake relief, including US$2.6 million that came in via text message, spokesman Attie Poirier said.

World Vision USA raised US$2.42 million for quake relief in Japan, about US$24,000 through via mobile phone giving, spokesman Geraldine Ryerson-Cruz said.

And the US Salvation Army has raised US$2.1 million, the bulk through online donations but around five per cent via text message giving.

The idea of sending a text message to a number to donate US$10 at a time for a cause took off last year when the impoverished Caribbean island of Haiti was struck by a 7.0-magnitude quake that flattened large tracts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and claimed more than 200,000 lives.

Within three days after the Haiti quake, US-based organizations had raised more than US$10 million from text message donors alone, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at the time. Seven days after the Haiti quake, World Vision had received US$15.8 million in donations for the island nation, Ms Ryerson-Cruz told AFP. -- AFP

Tokyo stocks down more than 3%

A man looks at a screen displaying stock prices in Tokyo on March 16, 2011. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

TOKYO - JAPANESE shares slumped more than three per cent in early trade on Thursday as the yen hit its highest level against the dollar since World War II and workers scrambled to avoid a nuclear catastrophe.

The benchmark Nikkei index fell 3.63 per cent to 329.74 points to 8,763.98 in early trading after rising more than five per cent on Wednesday on bargain hunting.

That rebound followed a major two-day sell-off to start the week in the wake of Friday's massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami, which has left nearly 13,000 people confirmed dead or missing. -- AFP

Philippines says no Japan evacuations

MANILA - THE Philippines said on Wednesday it was not planning to evacuate its more than 300,000 citizens in Japan amid the deepening nuclear crisis there.

Foreign Minister Albert del Rosario said those who were concerned about possible radiation exposure would need to leave using their own means.

'There's no mandatory repatriation,' Mr del Rosario told reporters.

Explosions and fire at a Japanese nuclear plant, crippled by a quake and tsunami last Friday, unleashed dangerous levels of radiation this week.

The threat of radiation poisoning triggered moves by foreign governments, including China and Europe, to start evacuating their citizens.

The foreign ministry also issued a statement saying that it would follow Japanese government advice in determining if there was a need to organise a mass evacuation of Filipinos. 'If, as determined by Japanese officials, relocation and repatriation become necessary, the Philippine government will defray the cost to undertake the required measures,' the statement said. -- AFP

Thailand to give iodine pills to Japan-bound flyers

BANGKOK - THAILAND'S public health ministry said on Wednesday that it would hand out free iodine tablets to passengers at airports where jets are departing for disaster-stricken Japan.

Fears about harmful nuclear contamination are growing after a series of explosions, fires and radiation leaks at a nuclear facility on Japan's north-eastern coast, following Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami.

'I have already ordered the government pharmaceutical organisation to produce back-up iodine tablets for special purposes,' said a ministry statement.

'Initially, we will produce 15,000 tablets to distribute for free at the airports which have flights from Thailand to Japan, such as Suvarnabhumi airport (in Bangkok) and Phuket airport, starting tomorrow,' it said.

'But we will screen and give only to passengers who are travelling to the risk area in northern Japan.' The ministry warned against all but necessary travel to the area, also saying it would offer advice and screenings to those returning to Thailand from Japan. -- AFP

Indonesia's nuclear plans intact amid Japan crisis

JAKARTA - INDONESIA said on Wednesday that it will press on with plans to build a nuclear plant close to a volcanic fault line, despite the nuclear emergency in earthquake and tsunami-ravaged Japan.

'If we pick to build it on Bangka island, surely it will be based on several considerations which are in line with international safety criteria,' the National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan) chief Hudi Hastowo told AFP.

Bangka island lies east of Sumatra island where a 9.1-magnitude undersea earthquake triggered a tsunami in 2004, killing 220,000 people in countries around the Indian Ocean including 168,000 in Indonesia.

'The site has a relatively stable record of seismic and volcanic activity,' he said, adding that the agency will 'certainly' adopt more sophisticated technology than Japan.

'It's too premature to discuss how the Japan crisis will directly affect our project,' he said.

'But surely in 2022 when we build the plant, we'll use a better technology system,' he added. The disaster that has befallen Japan's Fukushima plant has prompted some experts to cast a worried eye at nuclear plants in seismic zones. -- AFP

Japan's central bank injects new cash into markets

TOKYO - JAPAN'S central bank has injected billions of dollars into financial markets for a third day to ease the impact of last week's quake.

The Bank of Japan injected 3.5 trillion yen (S$55.5 billion) into markets on Wednesday. That came after injections totalling 23 trillion yen over the past two days.

The action is aimed at supporting financial markets that plunged after Friday's magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami that caused crippling problems at nuclear power plants. -- AP

US regulators backs Japan over nuclear safety

WASHINGTON - THE main US nuclear energy regulator said on Tuesday that Japan had taken appropriate actions in the face of damage to reactors following a devastating earthquake and tsunami.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said its analysts 'continue to conclude the steps recommended by Japanese authorities parallel those the United States would suggest in a similar situation'.

The NRC said the evacuation to 20km around the affected reactors 'parallel the protective actions the United States would suggest' under similar circumstances.

Japanese crews battled to avert a nuclear disaster and said they may pour water from helicopters to stop fuel rods from being exposed to the air and releasing even more radioactivity.

Radiation near the quake-hit Fukushima No.1 plant has reached levels harmful to health and was high overnight, officials said, advising thousands of people to stay indoors after two explosions and a fire at the facility on Tuesday. -- AFP

Japan's govt sets up joint nuclear response HQ

TOKYO - JAPANESE Prime Minister Naoto Kan says the government is setting up a joint response headquarters with the operator of a stricken nuclear reactor to better manage the crisis.

Mr Kan told reporters early on Tuesday that he will personally lead operations at the headquarters, which will be located at the main office of the Tokyo Electric Power Co.

The utility is working to prevent reactors at its Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant from going into meltdown.

Mounting troubles at Dai-Ichi are compounding the immense challenges faced by the government, already struggling to send relief to hundreds of thousands of people along the country's quake- and tsunami-ravaged coast. -- AP

In tragedy, Japanese impress world

WASHINGTON - DESPITE the horrific scenes of destruction, Japan may emerge from its quake-tsunami disaster with a stronger international brand-name as the nation's resilience wins wide praise.

Television stations around the world have broadcast the footage of the seismic waves as they razed homes and carried away cars as if they were toys, stranding dazed survivors on the brutalised landscape.

But coverage has also shown another side - Japanese showing calm as they search for loved ones or wait for basic necessities. There is not a hint of looting or violence, even as residents line up at half-empty stores.

Entries on the English-language blogosphere speak of the Japanese as 'stoic' and wonder the reaction in Western countries would be to a disaster of similar magnitude. Harvard University professor Joseph Nye said that the disaster may turn out to benefit Japan's 'soft power' - a term he coined to describe how nations achieve their goals by appearing more attractive to others.

'Though the tragedy is immense, this sad event shows some of the very attractive features of Japan, and thus may help their soft power,' Prof Nye told AFP in an email exchange.

'In addition to the sympathy it will engender, it shows a stable, well-mannered society that was as prepared for such a disaster as any modern country could be, and which is responding in a calm and orderly way,' he said. -- AFP

Plant operator says reactor seal apparently not holed

TOKYO - THE seal around a reactor at a quake-damaged Japanese nuclear power plant does not appear to have been holed, the plant operator said on Tuesday, following an explosion at the plant.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters earlier that the suppression pool of the number-two reactor at the Fukushima No.1 plant appeared to have been damaged.

The pool forms the base of the container vessel which seals the fuel rods.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) 'said it believes the container vessel has not sustained damage such as a hole, judging from the fact that the radiation level has not jumped,' a spokesman for the country's nuclear safety agency told AFP.

A huge explosion hit the building housing the number-two reactor early on Tuesday, the third blast at the plant since Saturday.

Japan is working desperately to avert a nuclear meltdown after Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami cut power to the ageing plant and knocked out cooling systems. -- AFP

Philippine nuclear proponent reverses stand

Philippine scientists using a portable radiation detection machine called a "Surveillance And Measurement System" (SAM 935) monitor radiation levels at the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) headquarters in Manila, as a precautionary measure amidst the danger of a nuclear meltdown in Japan after it was hit by a powerful quake on March 11. -- PHOTO: AFP

MANILA - THE leading proponent of introducing nuclear energy to the Philippines reversed his stand on Monday in the wake of a potential nuclear disaster in quake-hit Japan.

Mark Cojuangco, a cousin of President Benigno Aquino, said there was a need to rethink assumptions that nuclear power was safe following two explosions in three days at Japan's Fukushima plant.

'In the light of Fukushima, I would like to say that now is the opportune time, the right time, for the whole world's nuclear power industry to be in a period of introspection,' Mr Cojuangco said in a statement.

'Meaning, they should examine events like Fukushima and see if all the assumptions of safety of nuclear power are still valid, and if adjustments are to be made, what are they.'

Last year, while he was a member of parliament, Mr Cojuangco lobbied heavily for the reactivation of a mothballed nuclear energy plant as a means to address the Philippines' perennial power outages.

He had authored a bill proposing the funding of a feasibility study to revive the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) which remains pending in the House of Representatives. -- AFP

Foreigners, wary of nuclear risk, flee Tokyo

As Japan confronts a post-quake nuclear emergency, foreigners have begun a slow exodus from Tokyo, though some are maintaining a stiff upper lip. -- ST PHOTO: NEO XIAOBIN

TOKYO - FEARING the possible risk of contamination as Japan confronts a post-quake nuclear emergency, foreigners have begun a slow exodus from Tokyo, though some are maintaining a stiff upper lip.

Several European nations have advised their citizens to consider leaving the Japanese capital following two blasts at a quake-damaged atomic power plant 250km to the north, sparking fears of a possible meltdown.

France went further, telling citizens to leave the Tokyo area 'for a few days' if they had no specific reason to stay and warning that if a reactor were to explode, radioactive steam could reach the city in a 'matter of hours'.

'A third of our staff has left,' Stefan Huber, the Austrian deputy head of the European Union delegation in Japan, told AFP.

He added that executives at several German companies such as Bosch, Daimler and BMW, as well as law offices, had evacuated their spouses and children, noting that in Tokyo's German community 'it's a veritable exodus'.

Marissa, a dual Australian-Italian national who has lived in Tokyo for the past six years with her husband and two young children, decided Sunday that she was not taking any more chances and the family flew to Hong Kong.

'We just thought it was probably better to leave at this point in time... I don't know about this nuclear issue, they don't seem to have quite got it under control yet,' she told AFP, asking to be identified only by her first name. -- AFP

Tsunami waves kill one in Indonesia

A vessel moves out to sea from Yoauina Bay, Oregon amid rough seas. An Indonesian man was killed by tsunami waves from Japan's massive earthquake. -- PHOTO: AP

JAKARTA - A MAN in Indonesian eastern Papua province was killed by tsunami waves from Japan's massive earthquake, an official said Sunday.

The 25-year-old man drowned after he was swept away by the waves late Friday in a coastal village near the provincial capital Jayapura, local search and rescue agency chief Suyatno told AFP, confirming local media reports.

'He was riding a motorcycle and was on his way to warn his family about the tsunami. But the waves carried him away and he drowned,' he said.

'His body was found about an hour later near the beach.' The 8.9-magnitude quake in Japan triggered a tsunami of 'less than a metre' high in Jayapura, the country's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency technical chief Suharjono told AFP on Sunday.

A smaller tsunami of only 10 centimetres hit Indonesia's North Sulawesi and North Maluku islands, he added.

'On whether the man was killed by the waves, we'll have to conduct further investigation on what actually happened,' he said.

However, Mr Suyatno said that waters had swept 300 metres inland in Jayapura causing 'minor damage' to several houses and a bridge. -- AFP