Japanese media is reporting that there has been an explosion at one of the Fukushima nuclear power plants worst affected by yesterday’s massive earthquake.

Quoting Japan’s Jiji news agency, Reuters has just reported that there has been an explosion at the Daichi 1 reactor, and it noted TV footage showing vapour rising from the plant.

Reuters reported:

‘The blast came as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. worked desperately to reduce pressures in the core of the reactor that -- if not contained -- could lead to a release of radiation into the atmosphere.

‘"An unchecked rise in temperature could cause the core to essentially turn into a molten mass that could burn through the reactor vessel," risk information service Stratfor said in a report. "This may lead to a release of an unchecked amount of radiation into the containment building that surrounds the reactor."

‘NHK television and Jiji said the outer structure of the building that houses the reactor appeared to have blown off, which could suggest the containment building had already been breached.’

It’s still too early to say how serious the explosion is, and whether it indicates that some kind of meltdown is imminent. An analyst from Chatham House suggested on CNN a few minutes ago that the explosion could be an unwelcome, but not disastrous, complication. He added that if the worst is occurring, it should quickly become evident in terms of radiation levels being reported.

We’ll keep you posted.

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Already reeling from a devastating earthquake and tsunami, Japan is now battling to prevent a third disaster in the shape of a nuclear leak. Workers at two nuclear plants in Fukushima are currently trying to reduce pressure, and the government has warned of a possible radiation leak. Kyodo News has quoted a Tokyo Electric Power Co. official as saying that they were having problems opening a valve to release pressure at the company's Daiichi reactor. Prime Minister Naoto Kan has ordered an evacuation within a 10-kilometre radius of the two plants.

In its latest update, AP reports that residents within an about 20-kilometre radius have been advised to stay indoors. The International Atomic Energy Agency has reportedly said that diesel generators that would normally keep cooling systems running at the Daiichi plant had been disabled by tsunami flooding. 

According to AP: ‘Defense Ministry official Ippo Maeyama said that dozens of troops trained for chemical disasters had been dispatched to the plant in case of a radiation leak, along with four vehicles designed for use in atomic, biological and chemical warfare.

‘If temperatures inside the reactor were to keep rising to more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, it could set off a chemical reaction that begins to make brittle the metallic zirconium that sheathes the radioactive uranium fuel.

‘That reaction releases hydrogen, which can explode when cooling water finally floods back into the reactor. That was a concern for a time during the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor accident in Pennsylvania.’

The death toll from the quake and tsunami has already reached 500, according to the National Police Agency, although most estimates suggest it will soon top 1000.

Bloomberg reported that the country has mobilized 8000 troops from its Self-Defence Forces, as well as 300 planes. Offers of help have poured into the country from overseas, including from Australia, China, New Zealand and the United States. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said that the Japanese government had also requested assistance from US military based in Japan.

Bloomberg reported: ‘In Washington, US President Barack Obama said he was “heartbroken” over “a potentially catastrophic disaster” and called Kan to offer “whatever assistance is needed.” Several vessels in the US fleet are being repositioned to eastern Japan to assist if needed, said Lieutenant Commander Justin Cole, a Navy spokesman.’

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It’s about 10 hours after a massive earthquake struck northeast Japan and we’re still feeling regular aftershocks in Tokyo, some 250 miles from where it struck. I’ve experienced many quakes living in Tokyo, but this was far and away the most powerful that I’ve felt. Even walking outside immediately after the initial 8.9 magnitude temblor you could feel the ground swaying underfoot for minutes after the initial tremor and the first powerful aftershock, and you actually had to steady yourself. It was extraordinarily powerful.

I’ve been on the radio this evening as I made my way home, responding to questions from broadcasters in the United States. I was asked if there was any panic, to which I’d have to say, not really. When the main quake first struck, there was some initial panic among some of the office workers who poured out onto the streets in central Tokyo. But people quickly recovered, and the long lines at bus stops and taxi stands after work were all extremely orderly. Of course, hundreds of thousands of people won’t be making it home at all this evening, with many of the train services suspended. It will be a long uncomfortable night in the office for many people.

Tokyo Notes blogger Andy Sharp told me:

‘I was home alone as my wife and six-month-old son had just gone out to a cafe to meet a friend of my wife’s. It started to shake, and quickly got bigger and bigger. I hid under my computer desk, my heart was pounding as my office bookshelf toppled, and sounds of glass and crockery crashing down came from the kitchen and living room.

‘As the shakes grew violent, I still didn't feel it was the big one here, but I knew it was massive somewhere else. I went out to the cafe and found my family safe and sound. We got off lightly here in suburban Yokohama, which is just outside Tokyo. But I'm still shaking. My thoughts are with everyone up north.’

This all, of course, pales in comparison with what has taken place in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, where the results of the earthquake and ensuing tsunami have been quite simply catastrophic. Our thoughts are with those who will now have to start trying to put their lives back together after what is one of the biggest earthquakes in history. Local news is reporting at least 300 dead, a figure that’s bound to rise further.

One of the key concerns has been the safety of the country’s numerous nuclear power plants, four of which were reportedly shutdown in the area worst affected by the quake.

Reports are unclear whether there has been any kind of leak. According to CNN, workers at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima are having problems cooling the reactor, and an evacuation of nearby residents has been ordered. The Kyodo News agency reported that a state of atomic power emergency had been called following the quake.

For those who are concerned about the safety of anyone they know here in Japan, Google has launched a Person Finder where you can enquire about a person or post information about yourself or someone you know. 

-- The Editor

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Latest reports from the US Geological Survey have upgraded the quake that hit northeast Japan today to 8.9. If this is confirmed, it would make it the fifth biggest earthquake since 1900. That is globally, not just in Japan. The Japanese Cabinet is currently holding an emergency meeting and Prime Minister Naoto Kan will be addressing the nation soon.

Following is a first reaction report from Associate Editor Ulara Nakagawa, who is in Tokyo.

'I was outside just about to cross a busy intersection in the Ebisu area of central Tokyo when I heard some women screaming. It’s a cliché, but things really did feel like they happened in slow motion as I looked around and realized what was happening. The first thought to go through my head was ‘Great Kanto earthquake.’  Tokyo is long overdue what is generally referred to as ‘The Big One’.

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Northeast Japan has been hit by a massive earthquake that was felt here in Tokyo. We can still feel the powerful aftershocks at the moment. According to Reuters, the tremblor measured 7.9, although there are reports from some news agnecies that it could have been as high as 8.8. A tsunami warning has been issued and there is, as is understandable in these situations, much conflicting information being passed around about the after effects.

We'll keep readers updated with any thoughts or information over the next couple of days.

Doomsayers will no doubt be pointing out that the insurrections across the Arab world—and the ensuing oil and food price hikes—threaten to knock the global economic recovery off track. So what can Japan do to help stave off such destabilizing uncertainty?

Once the unrest began, Tunisia and Egypt disposed of their brutal dictators relatively quickly. But the delusional Col. Muammar Gaddafi seems determined to maintain his grip over the Libyan people through all means at his disposal. Western powers are mulling military responses such as no-fly zones, but with its hands constitutionally tied, Japan has only been able to join in with the United States and other Western nations in deciding to implement trade and financial sanctions against Tripoli.

But Japanese trade sanctions will have little impact—Libya only exports scraps of seafood to Japan each year (although a Majirox News report states that a fall in imports of blue fin tuna from Libya, Egypt and Tunisia could see the price of sushi spiking), while trade in the opposite direction is about six-times greater and consists mainly of Japanese autos. The Finance Ministry, for its part, said it would freeze any assets belonging to Gaddafi and his family in Japan in the unlikely event any were found.

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Tokyo’s outspoken Gov. Shintaro Ishihara says his country, which suffered history’s only nuclear attack, should build nuclear weapons to counter the threat from fast-rising China.

In my interview with Ishihara, published in The Independent today, Ishihara said Japan could develop nukes within a year and send a strong message to the world. ‘All our enemies: China, North Korea and Russia—all close neighbours—have nuclear weapons. Is there another country in the world in a similar situation?

‘People talk about the cost and other things, but the fact is that diplomatic bargaining power means nuclear weapons. All the members of the (United Nations) Security Council have them.’

Such comments, from the leader of Japan’s second-most powerful political office, come amid concerns about China’s growing military muscle. Beijing announced last week that its 2011 defense budget will be boosted by 12.7 percent to $91.5 billion, up from $81 billion last year. And most experts say that those figures are an underestimate.

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The Japanese government was dealt a potentially fatal blow Sunday with reports that Seiji Maehara has thrown in the towel as foreign minister.

Maehara was under pressure to quit over his receipt of 200,000 yen in donations from a family friend of South Korean nationality (under a political funding law it’s illegal for lawmakers to receive contributions from non-Japanese). It’s not yet clear whether Maehara was aware of the donation.

NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, reported Sunday evening that Maehara had submitted his resignation to Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

With Kan’s approval ratings having dropped to around 20 percent, the prime minister has been under intense pressure to either depart or call a snap election. Maehara is one of the most popular government figures and had been touted as a good bet eventually for the top office.

More details will doubtless emerge this coming week, but it seems as if Japan’s political financing laws, and their manipulation by opposition lawmakers, have claimed another ministerial scalp. 

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He’s young, whip-smart, and an avid train spotter. He’s also been touted as a potential future prime minister. Yet some accounting oversights could, possibly, have derailed any aspirations to higher office held by Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara.

On Thursday, Maehara apologized for a blooper by one of his staff in misreporting the name of a donor, and for the fact that his political organization also received donations from firms linked to a corporate manager charged with tax evasion. He said he was prepared to explain the oversight in parliament and return the money, but added he won’t resign over the matter.

Yet the following day, he found himself bowing once more in apology for a potentially more serious indiscretion involving the receipt of donations from a long-term foreign resident (illegal under a political funding law). The donor was a 72-year-old South Korean woman who runs a yakiniku barbecue restaurant in Kyoto whom Maehara had known since his school days. The woman had given 200,000 yen to Maehara’s political organization over four years, according to the body’s funding report. 

By now, there can be few people here who don’t know the name Tsutomu Yamaguchi. Japan’s first registered ‘double hibakusha,’ Yamaguchi suffered horrific injuries but survived the 1945 nuclear bombing of Hiroshima before returning home to Nagasaki and enduring the same hell three days later. ‘I thought the mushroom cloud had followed me home,’ he once famously said.

A modest man who declined to talk about what happened to him for decades, Yamaguchi quietly raised his family after the war and shunned the anti-bomb movement because, in his daughter Toshiko’s words, ‘he was so healthy, he thought it would have been unfair to people who were really sick.’ So he would surely have been astonished to find himself posthumously the subject of a global debate, after panelists on the BBC show QI last December asked whether Yamaguchi was the unluckiest or luckiest man on the planet.

Was it funny for the show’s panelists to joke about radioactivity, and that the bomb had ‘landed on Yamaguchi and bounced off,’ or to express amazement that the trains had kept running, despite the blasts? They’d surely find it much more difficult to laugh about, say, the victims of IRA or al-Qaeda underground bombings in Britain. But as one commentator said, humour, often puzzling and complicated, can't be understood outside of its cultural and social context.

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