Torrential rain hits Niigata, Fukushima

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Torrential rain hits Niigata, Fukushima

Torrential rain has caused rivers to overflow in Niigata and Fukushima prefectures in northern Japan.

About 207,000 people in 15 municipalities of the 2 prefectures are taking shelter, as of 8 PM on Saturday, following authorities' evacuation orders or advisories.

At least 3,000 houses have been flooded in the prefectures. In Niigata's Sanjo City, more than 10,000 people were ordered to evacuate after a dike collapsed. 2 men in Niigata Prefecture was found dead. 4 people are missing in the region.

NHK's aerial footage shows a destroyed bridge of East Japan Railway's Tadami Line, which connects Fukushima and Niigata prefectures. Only the bridge's columns can be seen in the overflowing river...

Sunday, July 31, 2011 01:07 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/30_21.html




Saturday, July 30, 2011

Fukushima teacher muzzled over radiation

By TAKAHIKO HYUGA
Bloomberg

As temperatures soared above 37 degrees on a recent July morning, schoolchildren in Fukushima Prefecture were taking off their masks and running around playgrounds in T-shirts, exposing themselves to a similar amount of annual radiation as a nuclear power plant worker.

Toshinori Shishido, a Japanese literature teacher of 25 years, warned his students two months ago to wear surgical masks and keep their skin covered with long-sleeved shirts. His advice went unheeded, not because of the weather but because his school told him not to alarm students. Shishido quit last week.

"I want to get away from this situation where I'm not even allowed to alert children about radiation exposure," said Shishido, 48, who taught at Fukushima Nishi High School. "Now I'm free to talk about the risks."

After the March 11 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Tohoku region, the central government evacuated as many as 470,000 residents, including 160,000 because of radiation risks from the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 power plant. More than 2 million people, including 271,000 children, remain in Fukushima, the third-biggest prefecture by size…

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110730x3.html





About 20,600 dead or missing in March 11 disaster

The number of dead or missing in the March 11th earthquake and tsunami, including aftershocks, stands at 20,627 as of Saturday.

The National Police Agency says 15,648 people are confirmed dead and 4,979 remain unaccounted for.

Miyagi Prefecture has the most deaths at 9,367, followed by Iwate with 4,615 and Fukushima with 1,600.

The disaster also claimed 24 lives in Ibaraki Prefecture, 20 in Chiba, and 7 in Tokyo.

Sunday, July 31, 2011 01:19 +0900 (JST)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/society.html





Saturday, July 30, 2011

Utility says NISA sought 'plants' to talk up MOX bid

By KAZUAKI NAGATA
Staff writer
Chubu Electric Power Co. said Friday it was asked by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to set up supportive or neutral questions from the audience at a 2007 symposium about a plan to use a controversial fuel mix at the Hamaoka nuclear plant.

According to Chubu Electric, NISA orally requested that it draft such questions and give them to people who would attend the symposium to make sure not all the questions would be against the use of plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel.

MOX fuel, used in "pluthermal" power generation, is created from spent nuclear fuel and uranium. In 2005, Chubu Electric had announced plans to introduce the pluthermal system in reactor 4 at the Hamaoka plant in Shizuoka Prefecture.

Although the utility drafted the questions, it eventually decided not to set up someone to ask the planted questions because it would have been problematic in terms of compliance…

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110730a2.html




Revelations about staging illustrate collusive ties between gov't and power companies

Two electric power companies' revelations that the government's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) asked them to stage questions in symposia on nuclear energy policy have demonstrated the collusive relationship between NISA and the nuclear power industry.

Power suppliers and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), NISA's parent body, have until now both said their briefing sessions and symposia on nuclear power policy for the public have been held in a fair and just manner. They never breathed a word about insiders being sent to fill seats or pose questions that were neutral or in favor of nuclear power generation.

It makes the revelations that NISA, which is supposed to strictly regulate nuclear power generation for safety reasons, may have actively promoting nuclear power all the more shocking.

"The public's confidence in us has been badly damaged. It's a fateful crisis for not only NISA but the ministry as a whole," says a high-ranking METI official…

(Mainichi Japan) July 30, 2011

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110730p2a00m0na013000c.html