Παρασκευή 25 Μαρτίου 2011

Japan tsunami: Toll tops 10,000 two weeks after quake

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The death toll from Japan's 11 March earthquake and tsunami has topped 10,000, police say.
More than 17,440 people are listed as missing, and 2,775 as injured.
Many hundreds of thousands of people remain homeless, short of food, water and shelter after the magnitude 9.0 quake shattered communities.

At the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant work is continuing to find the source of escaping vapour which has caused fears about food and water purity.
Engineers are hoping to re-start generators to run vital cooling equipment for nuclear rods in the six-reactor plant at Fukushima.
Two workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant were taken to hospital after being exposed to high levels of radiation.
The government has ordered new safety measures at the plant after it emerged the workers had not been wearing the correct protective boots and had ignored a radiation alarm.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs the nuclear plant, has said a cold shutdown may still take a month.
"We are still in the process of assessing the damage at the plant, so that we can't put a deadline on when the cooling operations will work again," a TEPCO spokesman told AFP.
The plant is 250km (155 miles) north-east of the capital, Tokyo. The government has declared a 20km exclusion zone and evacuated tens of thousands of people.
Those living up to 30km away have been told to stay indoors to minimise exposure.
Radiation levels in Tokyo's water supply have now fallen, but remain high in other areas of northern Japan.
Chinese customs officials have reportedly treated two Japanese travellers who flew into China from Tokyo after they detected radiation levels "seriously exceeding limits". Meanhwile, the Chinese news agency, Xinhua, reported abnormal radiation was detected on a ship coming from Japan to Xiamen port in Fujian province.
Food fears

Japan has banned shipments of foodstuffs from areas around the damaged nuclear plant.
Continue reading the main story 
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Japanese food ban widens in Asia
People in Fukushima prefecture have been told not to eat 11 types of green leafy vegetables grown locally because of contamination worries.
Demand at Tokyo's usually busy Tsukiji fish market has dropped dramatically.
Importers of Japanese products are finding low levels of radiation in some food stuffs; though unsettling, the amounts found have in no cases been life-threatening.
Singapore's Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority said it had found small levels of contamination in Japanese mustard, parsley and two other plants imported from the prefectures of Tochigi, Ibaraki, Chiba and Ehime.
Singapore, Hong Kong, and other Asian importers have already placed bans on the import of vegetables, seafood and milk products from Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma prefectures.
Australia, the European Union, the United States and Russia have followed suit.
Shipping has also been affected: Hapag-Lloyd container shipping line is among a handful of companies that have said they will temporarily avoid sailing to Yokohama Port, inTokyo Bay.
Most of Japan's oil terminals remain open, Inchcape Shipping Services was quoted as saying.
Although damaged by the tsunami, 12 out of 15 ports in north-eastern Japan have started functioning again.
At least 18,000 houses were destroyed and 130,000 damaged by the quake and ensuing tsunami, and about 250,000 people are living in emergency shelters.
The Japanese government has said it will cost as much as 25 trillion yen ($309bn; £189bn) to rebuild the country after the disaster.

BBC


 

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