Japan’s darkest hour, as the ongoing crisis prompted by Friday’s earthquake and tsunami was described by Prime Minister Naoto Kan over the weekend, has become even blacker.

I’m down in Kyoto now as a precautionary measure following the ongoing problems stabilizing the Fukushima nuclear plants. Reuters is describing it as a potential catastrophe after explosions at the Daiichi plant ‘sent low levels of radiation floating towards Tokyo.’

According to the report:

‘Radiation levels in the city of Maebashi, 60 miles north of Tokyo, and in Chiba Prefecture, nearer the city, were up to 10 times normal levels, Kyodo news agency said. Only minute levels were found in the capital itself, which so far were "not a problem", city officials said.

‘“The possibility of further radioactive leakage is heightening," a grim-faced Kan said in an address to the nation. "We are making every effort to prevent the leak from spreading. I know that people are very worried but I would like to ask you to act calmly.”’

AP is reporting that one safety official has said the water inside the waste fuel storage pool for a damaged reactor ‘may be boiling.’ It adds that the Economy Ministry’s Hidehiko Nishiyama told reporters today: ‘We cannot deny the possibility of water boiling’ in the pool, adding that he sought to ‘avoid commenting on the potential risks from the rising temperatures caused by a failure of systems required to keep the spent fuel rods cool.’

Tokyo was far from panic-stricken when I left, but there was certainly an element of panic buying as stores ran out of things like bread, eggs and milk, as well as candles and batteries. There are still concerns that a major aftershock could strike the Sendai region or even Tokyo. This morning there was a moderate temblor centered around the Tokyo Bay area.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg said today that a Japanese research centre that specializes in the health effects of radiation will likely be dispatching two doctors this week to investigate the impact of the Fukushima fallout. Evan Douple, associate chief of researchat the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, said: ‘Additional people may follow to help measure radiation levels and work with local health officials to better understand the effects of exposure.’

-- The Editor

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As if things weren’t bad enough here, panic gripped the nation before lunch today with reports of another explosion at a nuclear plant and a tsunami warning.

Fortunately, though, the blast may not be as serious as initially feared, and no massive wave came ashore.

Shortly after 11am, reports came through of an explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s No. 3 reactor. According to the government, the blast was caused by a hydrogen leak – similar to the explosion at the No. 1 reactor.

The fact that it was a hydrogen blast, as opposed to a steam explosion, should bring some relief. People will no doubt be concerned about leaked radiation, but it’s still too early to come to any conclusions about this.

At around the same time, a fire helicopter off the coast spotted what was believed to be a three-metre tsunami off the coast of stricken Fukushima Prefecture. Warnings gave people very little time to move to higher ground, but the meteorological agency soon announced that it was a false alarm and the warning was lifted.

But while people are still stoically going about their business, phone calls I’ve received, and a look at social media sites, suggests there’s growing concern, if not panic among many people.

Meanwhile, the Kyodo news agency reported that relief workers have discovered about 2,000 bodies on the shores of Miyagi Prefecture.

About 100,000 Self-Defence Force troops are now involved in the operation. Last night, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said that they and other relief workers had rescued about 12,000 people.

The Yomiuri Shimbun has also reported that the government is considering a dispatch of reservists for the first time ever.

People are risking their own lives to save others. I salute them.

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Reports are coming in that there has been an explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No. 3 reactor. Officials had warned about the possibility of an explosion due to a build-up of hydrogen as efforts continued to cool the reactor with seawater. 

Reuters reports that officials are unceratin at this point if the explosion has only affected the outer concrete wall as happened at the weekend, or if there is an uncontrolled leak of radioactivity. At present it seems like the containment vessel in intact, but we'll keep you posted as we find out more.

A steam explosion in one of the reactors at the nuclear power stations in Fukushima Prefecture hit by Friday’s devastating earthquake could see radiation spreading as far as Tokyo, a designer of the plant said Sunday.

Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo, Masashi Goto gave reporters a clear explanation of what he believes happened in the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi (No.1) plant.

‘The problem was with the cooling system,’ said Goto, a former Toshiba employee specializing in containment vessel design. ‘Because this didn’t work, the temperature began to rise, and the water level began to drop. This exposed the upper parts of fuel rods and they started to melt.

‘The pressure in the containment vessel rose to about 1.5 times the level it was designed to withstand. The temperature in the pressure pool began to rise to over 100 degrees Celsius and pure water couldn’t be used to cool the system. People there tried to bring in (sea) water to cool the system.’

Goto said this was a difficult decision for officials as using sea water means there’s no guarantee the reactor can be used again, and, due to aftershocks, there is no guarantee that sea water can settle the reactor.

‘You need water, a pump and electricity to pump in water,’ he said. ‘Yet the entire site had no access to electricity, and two emergency diesel generators didn’t start up at the No. 1 reactor.

‘The build-up of pressure meant there was a real possibility of an explosion, which is why officials released a vent. By releasing radioactive materials into the air, you are defeating the purpose, but they had no choice.’

Goto believes the worst case scenario would be a steam explosion.

‘If water pumped into the system mixes with waste products, a steam explosion can occur,’ he said. ‘This is a physical explosion similar to magma from a volcano falling into water. This is very dangerous...This power plant has several reactors and if one goes off it could affect the others.’

Goto said this was a possibility and (depending on wind direction) could result in radiation reaching the Tokyo area, although he added: ‘No-one knows the exact situation inside the vessel.’

When asked whether the French government was right to recommend its citizens leave the Kanto area for a few days due to the risk of further large earthquakes and uncertainty over the nuclear plants, Goto responded: ‘It’s hard to say. People need all the information available to make informed decisions. We need data and we need to understand risks.’

Goto was appearing with members of the Citizens' Nuclear Information Centre (CNIC), an anti- nuclear public interest group. He will be speaking at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan again today to give an update.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced Sunday that nine prefectures around Tokyo will be subject to rolling three-hour power outages in a bid to prevent the electricity grid breaking down. The enforced blackouts will be the first in Japanese history.

The blog below gives English language details of where and when the outages will take place, and also lists some foreign language news sources.

http://daniel.domos.jp/

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The official death toll following Friday’s massive earthquake and tsunami has topped 1,200, but one police official has been quoted as saying that it could end up passing 10,000. It is, as Prime Minister Naoto Kan described it, the biggest crisis Japan has faced since World War II.

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Kan said: ‘The earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear incident have been the biggest crisis Japan has encountered in the 65 years since the end of World War II…We're under scrutiny on whether we, the Japanese people, can overcome this crisis.’

An estimated 2 million homes in Japan’s north are said to be without power as the temperature there plunges. About 1.4 million are currently without running water, according to Reuters. Here in Tokyo, supermarkets started to run low on fresh produce like eggs, bread and fresh fruit and vegetables, but most stores appeared to still be open as normal, as were many cafes and restaurants.

There’s stress and concern, not least over the uncertain situation surrounding the ongoing efforts to prevent a meltdown at power plants in Fukushima, but no panic. Still, the French Embassy has contacted its citizens in Tokyo and recommended that they leave the Kanto region for the time being.

All eyes now, though, are undoubtedly on nuclear power plants crippled by the magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami. News about what’s going on at the reactors is sketchy and there have been a number of what seem like conflicting reports.

According to the BBC, the country’s nuclear energy agency ‘has declared a state of emergency at a second nuclear facility, at Onagawa, after excessive radiation levels were recorded there. It said cooling systems at all three reactors at the Onagawa complex, which were automatically shut down after the earthquake and tsunami, were functioning properly and the rise in local radiation levels might have been caused by the Fukushima leak.’

The Daily Yomiuri, meanwhile, reported that almost 200 people might have been exposed to radioactivity from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.

‘The Fukushima prefectural government and the nuclear safety agency confirmed that 22 people had been exposed to radioactive material because of substances temporarily released from the No. 1 plant's No. 1 reactor after its hydrogen explosion Saturday afternoon,’ the paper reported this evening.

And, as if all this wasn’t enough, the country’s weather agency reported that a volcano in the south of the country has started spewing ash. AP notes that the Shinmoedake volcano has resumed activity after a couple of quiet weeks, although it’s unclear if the latest activity is related to Friday’s quake.

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As if things weren’t dire enough with thousands dead or incommunicado in northern Japan following Friday’s mega-quake, the radiation leaking from a nuclear power station is causing significant concern as far away as Tokyo.

Officials are spraying non-radioactive potassium iodide and issuing tablets of the compound to people around the plants’ (10- and 20-kilometre) exclusion zones to mitigate the effects of radiation. People in other regions are also rushing out to buy pills as rumours go viral on Twitter and other social media sites.

The government has rated the explosion that blew the roof off the reactor building at the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi (No. 1) nuclear plant as level four on the international scale of 0-7 (Chernobyl was a seven).

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) officials said the level of radiation at the plant briefly reached 1,204 reached micro siervets (over the permissible level of 500).

But top government spokesman Yukio Edano said there was no immediate health threat.

TEPCO also said that three reactors at the Fukushima Daini (No.2) plant have lost the ability to cool, but pressure is stable inside the reactors.

Hydrogen burn-off was blamed for the explosion at the No. 1 reactor, and Edano announced at around 4 pm local time today that hydrogen was also building up outside the No. 3 reactor, adding that an explosion is likely. He stressed, however, that there was no need to panic.

All this underscores the need for people to be aware that there will be numerous unfounded rumours, and the public should double-check with other sources whenever possible. This applies especially to people who are getting their news from outside of Japan.

Nuclear power accounts for about 30 percent of Japan’s overall electricity generation. Tonight I’ll be attending a press conference by members of the Citizen’s Nuclear Information Centre (CNIC), an anti-nuclear organization, to get their take on the situation at the Fukushima plant.

Meanwhile, Tokyo Notes contributor David McNeill and The Diplomat’s Associate Editor Ulara Nakagawa (tweeting on @ularainblack) are in and around the disaster area and we’ll bring you more news as soon as it comes in.

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Just a short note to update on the rescue efforts and death toll following Friday’s earthquake, which has apparently been upgraded to a 9.0 by the Japan Meteorological Agency. Tokyo Notes’ Andy Sharp will be writing shortly on the developing situation with the country’s nuclear reactors.

The official death toll has now risen to 801, with 678 missing. This could rise significantly, especially with reports from the town of Minamisanriku that as many as 9,500 people are missing. Tokyo Notes’ David McNeill is trying to get to the town as we write, but has warned that access into the area is extremely limited.

Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa has said that 100,000 personnel from the country’s Self-Defence Forces will be dispatched to Sendai to assist with search and rescue efforts, up from the 50,000 discussed yesterday. Numerous countries have pledged or are sending search and rescue teams to assist with relief efforts following the massive quake.

Reports suggest that as many as 400,000 people have evacuated the area, including about 100,000 who have been evacuated over concerns about a possible meltdown at least one of the nuclear reactors in Fukushima.

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We had a chance to catch up with Tokyo Notes blogger David McNeill, who is in the area worst-affected by the earthquake and tsunami.

Where are you now?

Right now we’re in Sendai. We’re heading north to the town of Minamisanriku, which I know you’ve heard of. It’s basically been wiped out by the tsunami, but we’re going to get as close as we can. We’re told that the roads are at least partially blocked, either by falling objects or police who have set up a perimeter. So we don’t now how close we’re going to be able to get. Last night we stayed in Fukushima, about 30 kilometres from the nuclear power plant.

How difficult has it been to get around?

It’s been really difficult. We hired a car and the aim was to leave Tokyo at 8 am Saturday morning. But with one thing and another, we were still stuck in Tokyo in traffic at 1.30 pm. We made Saitama (the neighbouring prefecture) by 2.30 pm, but then we caught a break. We tried to get on the motorway, but we were told we needed a special pass that the emergency services have, called a kinkyusho pass.

So we went to a local cop shop and said we were journalists, but because we weren't Japanese they didn’t have us listed as members of one of the Japanese press clubs. But someone checked it out with the National Police Agency in Tokyo and they issued us with one of those passes. So what that means is that we can put that on the front of our windscreen here and we can now get onto the motorways. And that’s great because motorways are entirely empty apart from an army of relief trucks, police, ambulances and fire trucks all making their way in a convoy up north to the affected areas.

How has what you’ve seen so far compared with other disasters you’ve covered?

The motorways are about what I’ve seen before, because I’ve been to Niigata and other places to cover quake damage. So it’s the usual ‘liquorice’ effect, where the roads have become twisted and have erupted in parts. There are parts of the road that have been broken, which makes it dangerous to travel at any speed on them because you can hit a major pothole.

But this morning, when we got down to the coast just outside the place we were staying in, there was severe tsunami damage there. That’s when we got a sense of what it’s really like. Cars have been flipped over, and many of them are pushed back a couple of hundred yards from the sea. The tsunami had come through houses along the coast, and a supermarket and home improvement centre, and pushed everything inside out to the front. So when you see the extent of the damage there, and you imagine it replicated all up the Pacific coast, then you really get a feeling of the scale of the tragedy. It must be enormous.

Are rescuers able to get into the area?

The worst affected area appears to be Iwate, and most of the refugees I’ve spoken to – we’ve just been to the prefectural office – are from Iwate. I was told that most of the people on the second floor of that building were refugees from there. Many of these people just can’t get home, and much of the prefecture appears to be incommunicado, with people not able to get cell phone access, so they can’t reach their families.

Obviously, the emergency services are using the main arteries, which are off-limits to the pubic, and at least along the main routes they are moving quite freely. But once they get off these main routes it’s different. We’ve just heard, for example, that the roads to the village we’re heading to are partially or even completely blocked.

I know this is a broad question, but what’s your sense from the refugees that you’ve spoken with of how people are coping with all this?

They’re sanguine. I think if this was another part of the world then people would be angry about something. But they’re not -- I haven’t met anyone who’s angry. I’ve met a lot of people who are obviously tired and resigned, but I think mostly the emergency services are working quite well and people have enough to eat and drink. There’s a level of discomfort of course after sleeping in kids’ gymnasiums. But for now, at least, they seem to have accepted their lot.

The most controversial thing I’ve heard was from one guy I spoke to back in the prefectural office, who works for a cement company. He asked how we’re going to pay for all this, because we don’t have any tax receipts. That’s going to be one debate. The other debate is going to be about nuclear power after this disaster. There’s no disguising that this has been a major disaster in Fukushima.

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While Japanese officials continue to grapple with the threat of a major nuclear meltdown (which looks a little less likely than it did a few hours ago), the rescue effort has been continuing in the northeast of the country following the magnitude 8.9 earthquake that hit Friday.

Speaking at a meeting of the emergency disaster headquarters Saturday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said that at least 1,000 people likely had lost their lives, although with reports coming through that as many as 9,500 people were still missing in Minamisanriku in Miyagi Prefecture (about half the town’s population), this figure may end up looking conservative.

As many as 50,000 troops from Japan’s Self-Defence Forces have been dispatched to assist with rescue efforts, which could be further hampered by the ongoing aftershocks. Estimates vary on how many there have been, but their frequency and intensity (the strongest so far has been magnitude 6.7, and they’ve been regularly rattling us here in Tokyo) pose a threat to buildings made unstable by the initial quake.

About 5 million people across the country were estimated earlier this evening to be without power, and with a number of nuclear reactors shut down, Tokyo and other areas are preparing for possible phased blackouts to ease electricity demand from early Monday.

The Japan Times reported Saturday:

‘Fires in residential areas continued, with Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture suffering three large-scale fires.

‘The number of partially or completely destroyed buildings has now reached some 3,400, with the number of fires that hit quake-affected areas totalling about 200, according to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Meanwhile, the welfare ministry said 181 welfare facilities, including nursing homes, have been damaged.’

The Diplomat’s Tokyo Notes bloggers David McNeill and Andy Sharp are heading to the affected area and, communications permitting, will be giving us an update on the ground about how things look. The roads have been jammed with people trying to get in and out of the Sendai area, but we hope to have some coverage from them Sunday.

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Latest reports suggest that, for now at least, a major meltdown looks like being avoided at a nuclear power plant in northeast Japan that was badly damaged by the massive earthquake that struck yesterday afternoon.

Getting clear information on the situation is difficult – one US news station, for example, suggested in one segment there had been about 80 aftershocks since yesterday’s main temblor, but in a graphic a couple of minutes later said it was about 180. (The former seems much more likely, although the aftershocks, some of which have topped magnitude 6, have been so regular it’s hard to keep track).

According to a Reuters report, radiation is leaking from a plant in Fukushima after a large explosion earlier this afternoon apparently blew off the roof. The evacuation radius was increased from an initial 10 kilometre radius to 20 kilometres, and officials are said to be distributing iodine to locals to help protect them from radiation exposure.

But despite initial speculation among some news stations determined to press analysts and correspondents to discuss ‘the worst case scenario,’ experts contacted by Reuters said Japan shouldn’t see a repeat of the Chernobyl disaster in Russia.

‘They said pictures of mist above the plant suggested only small amounts of radiation had been expelled as part of measures to ensure its stability, far from the radioactive clouds Chernobyl spewed out 25 years ago,’ Reuters reported. ‘Valeriy Hlyhalo, deputy director of the Chernobyl nuclear safety centre, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying Japanese reactors were better protected than Chernobyl.’

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