Japan Quake Causes Havoc At Nuke Plant

Fires, Leaks Discovered Day After 6.6 Magnitude Earthquake; At Least 50 Malfunctions Reported

(CBS/AP) 
"The damage is more than we had imagined," said Kashiwazaki Mayor Hiroshi Aida. "We want to recover water first as soon as possible so more people can return home."

Nine people in their 70s and 80s - six women and three men - died, most of them crushed by collapsing buildings, the Kyodo news agency said early Tuesday. One person was still missing, officials said.

The area was plagued by aftershocks, but there were no immediate reports of additional damage or casualties. Near midnight, Japan's Meteorological Agency said a 6.6-magnitude quake hit off the west coast, shaking wide areas of Japan, but it was unrelated to the Niigata quake to the north and there were no immediate reports of damage.

The quake, centered off the coast of Niigata in northwest Japan but felt as far as 160 miles away in Tokyo, triggered a fire in an electrical transformer and caused a leak of radioactive water at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant, a sprawling complex that is the world's largest in terms of electricity output.

The quake hit just after 10 in the morning on Monday but it wasn't until Monday night that officials, who had said there was no radioactive leak, admitted that there had been one but insisted there is no danger from the leak.

The revelation that there was a leak - of radioactive water - raised new questions about the safety of Japan's 55 nuclear reactors, which supply 30 percent of the electricity in this quake-prone nation, and which have had a long string of accidents and cover-ups.

About 315 gallons of slightly radioactive water apparently spilled from a tank at one of the sprawling power complex's seven reactors and entered a pipe that flushed it into the sea, said Jun Oshima, an executive at Tokyo Electric Power Co. He said it was not clear whether the tank was damaged or the water simply spilled out.

Officials said there was no "significant change" in the seawater near the plant, which is about 160 miles northwest of Tokyo. "The radioactivity is one-billionth of the legal limit," Oshima said of the leaked water.

Eliot Brenner, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington, said the agency told Japan's government it was ready to provide assistance if needed but had not received any request for help.

Brenner said he didn't have details about the incident. But a U.S. nuclear industry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the incident was a Japanese affair, said the transformer fire and water leak occurred in systems linked to different reactors.

First word of trouble at the Kashiwazaki Kariwa power plant was a fire that broke out at an electrical transformer. All the reactors were either already shut down or automatically switched off by the quake. The blaze was reported quelled by early afternoon, and the power company announced there was no damage to the reactor and no release of radioactivity.

But in the evening, the company released a statement revealing the leak of radioactive water, saying it had taken all day to confirm details of the accident. But the delay raised suspicions among environmentalists, who oppose the government's plan to build more reactors.

"The leak itself doesn't sound significant as of yet, but the fact that it went unreported is a concern," said Michael Mariotte at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a Maryland-based networking center for environmental activists. "When a company begins by denying a problem, it makes you wonder if there's another shoe to drop."

The accident comes as the government is discussing improving the earthquake resistance of such plants, said Aileen Mioko Smith of the Japan-based environmentalist group Green Action.

The fire indicated that some facilities at nuclear power plants, such as electrical transformers, were built to lower quake-resistance levels than other equipment, like reactor cores, she said.

"That's the Achilles' heel of nuclear power plants," said Mioko Smith, who pointed out that it took plant workers two hours to put out the transformer fire.

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Akira Amari told the power company early Tuesday not to resume plant operations before making a thorough safety check, Kyodo reported.

Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries.

In October 2004, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake hit Niigata, killing 40 people and damaging more than 6,000 homes. It was the deadliest to hit Japan since 1995, when a magnitude-7.2 quake killed 6,433 people in the western city of Kobe.

The last major quake to hit Tokyo killed some 142,000 people in 1923, and experts say the capital has a 90 percent chance of suffering a major quake in the next 50 years.

[nope123-2009]

Man, the conspiracy buffs just can't give it a rest, can ya? Give the Japanese a moment to assess damage, and to report it before you clamber all over them.

And zootallures2? You're a fricking IDIOT.

[erasmus6]

Remember the Russian nuclear sub that was stranded at the bottom of the ocean and how everyone died? And all because they didn't tell anyone right away and even when they did they didn't want anyone to come and help.

Let's hope it isn't the same with Japan.
And I wonder why they don't reveal information right away? Is it because they don't like the U.S. or is it because they don't want anyone to know what they are doing over there?

[oleander8]

The Japanese were hardly given a chance to assess damage before the everyone started claiming cover-up. Not fair.

[rushlimpdrug]

Hiroshima,
Nagasaki,
Kashiwazaki

[clestes-2009]

Add the word never in the first sentence.

[clestes-2009]

It has seemed to me to be a good idea to build nuclear reactors on big fault lines where you know it is not a matter of IF, but WHEN a big quake, say Reichter 8 or above can happen at anytime.

Japan has been plagued by big quakes regularly.

[rushlimpdrug]

I'm sure when this story first hit the report was of 1-1/2 liters of spill which was totally absurd.
This was followed by a report of several hundred gallons spilled.
The telling of lies about spills accomplishes absolutely nothing.
Go figure

[erasmus6]

"...officials who first said a nuclear power plant had no radioactive leak admitted 12 hours later that it did."

"...in this quake-prone nation and which have had a long string of accidents and cover-ups."


If they are known for cover-ups and it took them 12 hours to report a small leak, let's hope they aren't covering up something bigger.

[zootallures2]

So, the US military and the IDF are spreading depleated uranium all over the place. Who care anymore?

[zootallures2]

At one time there was a justification for the risks of nuclear power. Now it's only use it to fuel the land tax system. Modern technology is solving about as much as if went back to the stone age. The optimism of it all fueling a future of science and space exploration is toast and impossible. Swindling, sadistic, war mongering morons living in a majority decided fantacy world is all you've accomplished. The dream died on 9/11 when the US and A demolished their own towers. 2 + 2 = 22. Medical advances, safety, it's all moot because you bomb each other any how.

[randalds]

Japan and the Western coast of North America are joined by more then cultural and human connections, we also share the same unstable tectonic plates. Here's hoping the good people of Japan recover and receive as much aid as the US can provide, because I have no doubt they'd do the same for us and certainly better then our current FEMA could.