Workers were close to restoring power to a nuclear plant’s overheating reactors yesterday as the toll of dead or missing from Japan’s worst natural disaster in nearly a century neared 21,000.
Amid the devastation on the northeast coast left by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, police reported an astonishing tale of survival with the discovery of an 80-year-old woman and her 16-year-old grandson alive under the rubble.
“Their temperatures were quite low, but they were conscious. Details of their condition are not immediately known. They have been already rescued and sent to hospital,” a spokesman for the Ishinomaki Police Department said.
They were in the kitchen when their house collapsed, but the teenager was able to reach food from the refrigerator, helping them survive for nine days, broadcaster NHK quoted rescuers as saying.
However, with half a million tsunami survivors huddled in threadbare, chilly shelters and the threat of disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant stretching frayed nerves, the mood in the world’s third-biggest economy remained grim.
The discovery of traces of radioactive iodine in Tokyo tap water, well to the southwest of the crippled atomic power plant on the Pacific coast, compounded public anxiety, but authorities said there was no danger to health.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was struck on March 11 by a massive earthquake and tsunami which, with 8,199 people confirmed killed, is Japan’s deadliest natural disaster since the Great Kanto quake leveled much of Tokyo in 1923.
Another 12,722 are missing, feared swept out to sea by the 10m tsunami or buried in the wreckage of buildings. In Miyagi Prefecture on the northeast coast, where the tsunami reduced entire towns to splintered matchwood, the official death toll stood at 4,882.
However, Miyagi police chief Naoto Takeuchi told a task force meeting that his prefecture alone “will need to secure facilities to keep the bodies of more than 15,000 people,” Jiji Press reported.
Cooling systems that are meant to protect the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant’s six reactors from a potentially disastrous meltdown were knocked out by the tsunami, and engineers have since been battling to control rising temperatures.
The radiation-suited crews were striving to restore electricity to the aging facility 250km northeast of Tokyo, after extending a high-voltage cable into the site from the national grid.
A spokesman for Japan’s nuclear safety agency said electricity had apparently reached the power distributor at reactor 2, which in turn would feed power to reactor 1.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) confirmed an electricity supply had been restored to the distributor, but said power at the reactor unit was not back on yet.
Engineers were checking the cooling and other systems at the reactor, aiming to restore power soon, TEPCO said late yesterday.
“It will take more time. It’s not clear when we can try to restore the systems,” spokesman Naohiro Omura said.
Fire engines earlier aimed their water jets at the reactors and fuel rod pools, where overheating is an equal concern, dumping thousands of tonnes of seawater from the Pacific Ocean.
Six workers at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have been exposed to high levels of radiation, but are continuing to work and have suffered no health problems, TEPCO said.
MISINFORMATION: The generated content tends to adopt China’s official stance, such as ‘Taiwan is currently governed by the Chinese central government,’ the NSB said Five China-developed artificial intelligence (AI) language models exhibit cybersecurity risks and content biases, an inspection conducted by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The five AI tools are: DeepSeek, Doubao (豆包), Yiyan (文心一言), Tongyi (通義千問) and Yuanbao (騰訊元寶), the bureau said, advising people to remain vigilant to protect personal data privacy and corporate business secrets. The NSB said it, in accordance with the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法), has reviewed international cybersecurity reports and intelligence, and coordinated with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to conduct an inspection of China-made AI language
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
CHECKING BOUNDARIES: China wants to disrupt solidarity among democracies and test their red lines, but it is instead pushing nations to become more united, an expert said The US Department of State on Friday expressed deep concern over a Chinese public security agency’s investigation into Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) for “secession.” “China’s actions threaten free speech and erode norms that have underpinned the cross-strait ‘status quo’ for decades,” a US Department of State spokesperson said. The Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau late last month listed Shen as “wanted” and launched an investigation into alleged “secession-related” criminal activities, including his founding of the Kuma Academy, a civil defense organization that prepares people for an invasion by China. The spokesperson said that the US was “deeply concerned” about the bureau investigating Shen
‘TROUBLEMAKER’: Most countries believe that it is China — rather than Taiwan — that is undermining regional peace and stability with its coercive tactics, the president said China should restrain itself and refrain from being a troublemaker that sabotages peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Lai made the remarks after China Coast Guard vessels sailed into disputed waters off the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan — following a remark Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made regarding Taiwan. Takaichi during a parliamentary session on Nov. 7 said that a “Taiwan contingency” involving a Chinese naval blockade could qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, and trigger Tokyo’s deployment of its military for defense. Asked about the escalating tensions
RSS