Police in grim search as Japan looks to outside world for help
Source: Agencies |
April 1, 2011, Friday
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IN the shadow of Japan's struggle to stem radioactive leaks from its stricken nuclear complex, police in white moon suits pull bodies of tsunami victims from an evacuated zone in halting work interrupted by radiation alarms.
The crisis at the plant, which has compelled Japanese officials to increasingly turn to international help in stemming the leaks, has sometimes overshadowed the other disaster wrought by a March 11 tsunami: the decimation of hundreds kilometers of northeastern coastline, the displacement of tens of thousands and the deaths of an estimated 19,000 people.
"We find bodies everywhere - in cars, in rivers, under debris and in streets," a police official from the hard-hit Fukushima prefecture said yesterday.
Efforts to recover the bodies from the 20-kilometer evacuation zone around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have been slowed by a wasteland of debris, but also by fears of radiation.
Police dressed in full radiation suits retrieved 19 corpses from the rubble on Wednesday, the police official said.
Authorities declined to say how many bodies might still be buried in the evacuation zone, but local media have estimated hundreds remain.
Each officer wears a radiation detector and must leave the area whenever an alarm goes off - a frequent occurrence that has often brought the operation to a halt, the official said. "We want to recover bodies quickly, but also must ensure the safety of police officers against nuclear radiation," he said.
There also are concerns about the disposal of bodies, because Japanese tend to cremate their dead, and fires can spread radiation.
Overall, including in regions further from the stricken plant, police have recovered more than 11,000 bodies, but estimate that at least 19,500 are dead.
Radiation concerns also have complicated efforts to bring the plant itself under control. Contaminated water pooling inside the complex has begun to leak into the ground and ocean and has restricted where crews can work.
In another development illustrating the gravity of the problem, radioactive iodine-131 was found in ground water near No.1 reactor of Fukushima Daiichi complex, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said.
"Radioactive materials in the air could have come down to the Earth's surface and they could have seeped into the ground due to rainfall," a company spokesman said.
Radiation in water at an underground tunnel near another reactor of the plant had also been found more than 10,000 times above the normal level of water in reactors, Kyodo news agency quoted TEPCO as saying.
Radioactive caesium had appeared in beef from the area, Kyodo added.
Japanese officials are increasingly seeking outside help, including experts in eliminating contaminated water from French nuclear giant Areva. Experts and a remote-controlled robot from the US have also arrived in Japan.
"We need any wisdom available," nuclear safety agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.
Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon said she appreciated the enormity of the problem. "There is no precedent, and it's very complex," she said at a news conference in Tokyo.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who arrived yesterday in Tokyo to speak with the Japanese prime minister, urged the world to learn from Japan's crisis and suggested that the Group of 20 nations set international nuclear safety standards. "It's completely abnormal that these international safety norms don't exist," said Sarkozy after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan. The IAEA has standards, but they are not compulsory.
Kan is under pressure to expand the evacuation zone, where radiation has hit 4,000 times the legal limit in the nearby sea. The UN atomic agency IAEA said radiation at a village 40km away exceeded a criterion for evacuation.
The crisis at the plant, which has compelled Japanese officials to increasingly turn to international help in stemming the leaks, has sometimes overshadowed the other disaster wrought by a March 11 tsunami: the decimation of hundreds kilometers of northeastern coastline, the displacement of tens of thousands and the deaths of an estimated 19,000 people.
"We find bodies everywhere - in cars, in rivers, under debris and in streets," a police official from the hard-hit Fukushima prefecture said yesterday.
Efforts to recover the bodies from the 20-kilometer evacuation zone around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have been slowed by a wasteland of debris, but also by fears of radiation.
Police dressed in full radiation suits retrieved 19 corpses from the rubble on Wednesday, the police official said.
Authorities declined to say how many bodies might still be buried in the evacuation zone, but local media have estimated hundreds remain.
Each officer wears a radiation detector and must leave the area whenever an alarm goes off - a frequent occurrence that has often brought the operation to a halt, the official said. "We want to recover bodies quickly, but also must ensure the safety of police officers against nuclear radiation," he said.
There also are concerns about the disposal of bodies, because Japanese tend to cremate their dead, and fires can spread radiation.
Overall, including in regions further from the stricken plant, police have recovered more than 11,000 bodies, but estimate that at least 19,500 are dead.
Radiation concerns also have complicated efforts to bring the plant itself under control. Contaminated water pooling inside the complex has begun to leak into the ground and ocean and has restricted where crews can work.
In another development illustrating the gravity of the problem, radioactive iodine-131 was found in ground water near No.1 reactor of Fukushima Daiichi complex, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said.
"Radioactive materials in the air could have come down to the Earth's surface and they could have seeped into the ground due to rainfall," a company spokesman said.
Radiation in water at an underground tunnel near another reactor of the plant had also been found more than 10,000 times above the normal level of water in reactors, Kyodo news agency quoted TEPCO as saying.
Radioactive caesium had appeared in beef from the area, Kyodo added.
Japanese officials are increasingly seeking outside help, including experts in eliminating contaminated water from French nuclear giant Areva. Experts and a remote-controlled robot from the US have also arrived in Japan.
"We need any wisdom available," nuclear safety agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.
Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon said she appreciated the enormity of the problem. "There is no precedent, and it's very complex," she said at a news conference in Tokyo.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who arrived yesterday in Tokyo to speak with the Japanese prime minister, urged the world to learn from Japan's crisis and suggested that the Group of 20 nations set international nuclear safety standards. "It's completely abnormal that these international safety norms don't exist," said Sarkozy after meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan. The IAEA has standards, but they are not compulsory.
Kan is under pressure to expand the evacuation zone, where radiation has hit 4,000 times the legal limit in the nearby sea. The UN atomic agency IAEA said radiation at a village 40km away exceeded a criterion for evacuation.
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