(HEARTBREAKING) TSUNAMI HIT JAPAN AMATEUR FOOTAGE
Tsunami hit fukushima exposion, this heartbreaking video is caught on amateur camera,
Recovery efforts continue in Japan - 01 May 2011
Recovery efforts continue in Japan. In the aftermath of the massive March 11 quake and tsunami that claimed over 14,400 lives, over 11,000 are still listed as missing and even more yet unaccounted for. New data from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology found that the disaster caused the seabed off the devastated northeast to surge up to seven meters and shift 50 meters southeastward, indicating that the quake and tsunami were more powerful than previous estimates. Amid what may be the costliest natural disaster in the world, Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Masaaki Shirakawa on Saturday warned, The BOJ sees the outlook for Japan's economy as very severe. As the traditional week-long national holiday known as Golden Week began Friday, April 29, thousands of residents chose to forego their vacations to volunteer for cleanup efforts in the disaster zones instead.
At the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, operating firm Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) stated that the internal and external radiation exposures of employees working at the site are nearing Japan's legal limit for an emergency situation of 250 millisieverts per year. One of the workers has received 240.8 millisieverts of radiation total, and another has been exposed to 226.6 millisieverts. With large amounts of highly radioactive water at the site hampering crucial efforts to restore the plant's cooling infrastructure, TEPCO is employing two pumps instead of one to speed up transfer of the contaminated water from the reactor No. 2 building to a waste processing facility. After Japan's Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) asked on Thursday that the government assess the quake-resistance of all nuclear power plants, the nation's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency requested data from each of Japan's 12 utilities regarding fault lines and other geological features located near their nuclear power plants, to be submitted by the end of May.
Meanwhile, China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine announced on Friday that the nation had detected 30 cases of radioactive contamination in incoming passengers, vessels, and containers since the beginning of the nuclear crisis. The country's environment minister Zhou Shengxian met with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts, Shoichi Kondo and Lee Maan-ee, for the 12th Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting in Busan, South Korea. Following their talks on Friday, the three ministers agreed to strengthen their cooperation in environment disasters such as those that ravaged Japan, while Japanese Minister Kondo vowed to report information about radioactivity pollution from the Fukushima Daiichi accident and seek collaborative countermeasures. Meanwhile in the United States, another nuclear plant appeared to be having problems as high radiation levels were detected at the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in northeast Ohio, prompting the evacuation of the plant on April 22. According to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, workers were not exposed to radiation levels beyond federal limits, and an investigation into the source of the radiation is being conducted.
Our thankfulness, governments, personnel, and individuals from Japan and around the world, for your concern and help in bringing safety and stability to the lives of the disaster-afflicted. We pray that all such devastations may subside as humanity strives toward gentler stewardship of the environment.