GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - Operators won't rule out nuclear meltdown

The nuclear emergency in Japan following Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami has worsened, with the operators of the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant warning they are fighting to prevent a meltdown.

But as Japan struggles to deal with the disaster, which is feared to have killed more than 10,000 people, government officials are playing down the nuclear concerns, insisting the situation is under control.

Engineers are battling to cool three nuclear reactors at the ageing Fukushima plant, located 250 kilometres north-east of Tokyo, amid fears of a nuclear disaster on top of the magnitude-8.9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

The fuel rods in the No.2 reactor at the quake-damaged plant are again "fully exposed", boosting fears of an eventual partial meltdown.

Air pressure inside the reactor at the Fukushima No 1. plant rose suddenly when the air flow gauge was accidentally turned off, operator TEPCO said early Tuesday (local time).

That blocked the flow of cooling water into the reactor, leading to full exposure of the rods about 11pm on Monday, it said.

"We are not optimistic but I think we can inject water once we can reopen the valve and lower air pressure," a TEPCO official told reporters.

Explosions have already rocked two overheating reactors.

An explosion created by hydrogen blew apart the building housing the No.1 reactor on Saturday, while a second explosion on Monday rocked a building housing the No.3 reactor, injuring 11 people.

Late on Monday, TEPCO said a fuel rod meltdown in the No.2 reactor could not be ruled out after water levels dropped sharply.

But Japan's top government spokesman Yukio Edano said a major explosion was unlikely. He said engineers were pumping seawater in to stabilise it and radiation around the plant was at tolerable levels.

Authorities have declared an exclusion zone within a 20-kilometre radius of the plant and evacuated 210,000 people

At one shelter, a young woman holding her baby told public broadcaster NHK: "I didn't want this baby to be exposed to radiation. I wanted to avoid that no matter what."

Officials, who have been battling to avert a partial meltdown, have been using seawater to cool the reactors - an emergency procedure that will render the 40-year-old plant unusable.

Earthquake-prone Japan uses nuclear power to generate a third of its electricity, but the emergency has sparked growing international concern about the safety of nuclear power.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has ruled out the possibility of nuclear power in Australia.

Switzerland has suspended plans to build new nuclear power stations until it has carried out a thorough safety review.

The Indian prime minister says his government will make sure that all the country's nuclear plants withstand tsunamis and earthquakes.

And German chancellor Angela Merkel has announced a three-month stop on plans to extend the operation of nuclear power plants.

'Scenes from hell'

Meanwhile, many survivors are spending another night without water, electricity, fuel or enough food, as authorities appeared overwhelmed by the monumental scale of the disaster.

Searchers have found 2,000 bodies in Japan's quake-hit Miyagi region. The police chief in the prefecture said the death toll there was certain to exceed 10,000, with that many missing in the port town of Minamisanriku alone.

"It's a scene from hell, absolutely nightmarish," said Patrick Fuller of the International Red Cross Federation from the north-eastern coastal town of Otsuchi.

"The situation here is just beyond belief, almost everything has been flattened. The government is saying that 9,500 people, more than half of the population could have died and I do fear the worst."

Yesteray, a new tsunami scare triggered evacuations on the devastated north-east coast after a large wave was spotted rolling in to shore, but authorities later lifted an alert.

The United Nations said a total of 590,000 people had been evacuated in the aftermath of the quake and tsunami disaster.

With ports, airports, highways and manufacturing plants shut down, the government has predicted "considerable impact on a wide range of our country's economic activities".

Japanese stocks closed down more than 7.5 per cent, wiping $US287 billion off market capitalisation in the biggest fall since the height of the global financial crisis in 2008.

The yen surged to a four-month high after the central bank pumped a record amount of money into financial markets, while shares in automakers were hammered more than 10 per cent after they were forced to close factories.

Leading risk analysis firm AIR Worldwide said the quake alone would exact an economic toll estimated at between $US14.5 billion and $US34.6 billion, without taking into account the effects of the tsunami.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...15/3163913.htm