This article titled “Suspected North Korean defectors found off Japanese coast” was written by Justin McCurry in Tokyo, for The Guardian on Tuesday 13th September 2011 10.27 UTC

Coastguard officials in Japan are questioning nine suspected North Korean defectors after they were found drifting off the country’s west coast, on Tuesday morning.

The group – three men, three women and three young children – were found by a coastguard helicopter 15 miles off the Noto peninsula, in Ishikawa prefecture, after a tip-off from local fishermen.

They were collected by a coastguard vessel and taken to Kanazawa for questioning. Their eight-metre boat bore Korean characters along its sides and was stocked with rice and pickled vegetables, Japanese media reports said.

A man claiming to represent the group told local media that they had come from North Korea and had intended to travel to South Korea. The man reportedly described himself as a member of the Korean People’s army, and said the eight other people on board were his relatives.

They were fortunate to have survived the long trip east across the Japan Sea. The boat was not equipped with navigation equipment and none of the group wore a life jacket.

Japan is an unusual destination for North Koreans hoping to flee repression and poverty in the communist state. The coastguard has records of two other cases: in 2006, when four men and women drifted to the coast of northern Japan; and in 1987, when a family of 11 ended up on the country’s west coast.

Most would-be defectors cross the border into China or drift across the Yellow Sea maritime border dividing North and South Korea. Cross-border tensions escalated this year after four of 31 North Koreans who sailed into South Korean waters refused to return home.

The South Korean foreign ministry said it expected Japanese authorities to share the results of its investigation. An official in Seoul told the Yonhap news agency: “If they are confirmed to be North Korean defectors and have a clear desire to come to South Korea, we will take all necessary measures in accordance with the law on handling defectors.”

More than 21,000 North Korean defectors have entered the South since the end of the 1950-1953 Korean war, according to the unification ministry in Seoul.

The boat’s discovery so close to the Japanese coast prompted speculation that it may have continued to drift eastwards after failing to make landfall in South Korea.

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This article titled “Japan warned it must decide on future of Okinawa US marine base” was written by Justin McCurry in Tokyo, for The Guardian on Thursday 18th August 2011 13.17 UTC

A US official who until March was in charge of American policy towards Japan has warned that unless agreement is reached soon over the transfer of a US marine base in Okinawa, Washington will drop the plan to reduce its military footprint on the island.

Kevin Maher, who was sacked as director of the US state department’s office of Japan affairs in March after reportedly making disparaging remarks about Okinawans, said disagreement over the future of the base threatened to prolong the island’s burden of hosting about half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan.

Under a 2006 agreement, Futenma base, situated in a city, is to be relocated to a coastal area of Okinawa and 8,000 US marines and their families transferred to Guam by 2014.

Local opposition to the move – many Okinawans want the base moved off the island in southern Japan altogether – recently forced the countries to drop the deadline.

“If decisions are not made very clearly in the next few weeks to go forward with the realignment plan, Futenma is probably going to stay where it is,” Maher said in Tokyo during a speech to promote his book, The Japan That Can’t Decide.

“There’s nowhere else to move it. I’m afraid the US Congress is not going to continue to put the [$150m] funding into the relocation of troops to Guam because they understand the condition for that is the relocation of Futenma.”

Maher was forced to resign on 10 March, but asked to head the state department’s task force responding to the earthquake and tsunami that struck north-east Japan the following day.

He said Japan’s desire for consensus had slowed its response in the early days of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

“After the earthquake the focus quickly shifted to Fukushima Daiichi [nuclear power plant], and it was very clear to me as co-ordinator of the task force that no one was in charge. No one in the Japanese political system was willing to say, ‘I’m going to take responsibility and make decisions’.

“And decisions needed to be made, but they weren’t being made. For the first five or six days of the crisis, the [Japanese] administration’s position was that this wasn’t the government’s problem; it was Tokyo Electric Power’s problem. Nothing was taking place at Fukushima Daiichi in terms of the government solving the problem.”

Maher said similar stalling had hampered the tsunami clean-up effort along the devastated Tohoku coast. “You have to feel sympathy for the good people of Tohoku – they’re basically living on a giant garbage dump right now. The debris up there just isn’t being taken care of.

“It’s another example of [Japan's] inability in crisis to make decisions when the system depends on everyone agreeing what that decision is.”

Maher denied he had insulted Okinawan people during a briefing to university students in Washington last December. A report by the Kyodo news agency in March, drawing on accounts given by some students, said he described Okinawans as “masters of manipulation and extortion” in securing government subsidies in return for hosting US bases.

According to students’ accounts, he also cited the island’s higher than average divorce and drink-driving rates, attributing the latter to “Okinawa’s culture of drinking liquor with high alcohol content”.

Maher accused the journalist who wrote the report, Eiichiro Ishiyama, of basing his article on hearsay, and has asked Kyodo to investigate the case and correct or retract the story. Kyodo says it stands by the article.

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This is really unbelievable. Another earthquake has rocked the island of Japan. That country may never be the same again.

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.3 hit eastern Japan on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency said no tsunami warning was issued. The epicentre of the earthquake, which shook buildings in Tokyo, was at Chiba prefecture, near the coast east of the capital, the agency added.

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This article titled “Fukushima evacuees face arrest if they return home” was written by Justin McCurry in Tokyo, for The Guardian on Thursday 21st April 2011 12.39 UTC

Tens of thousands of people who were evacuated from near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant risk arrest if they return home, after the government declared the area a no-entry zone due to high radiation levels.

Under the order, which goes into effect at midnight local time, people living within a 12-mile (20km) radius of the atomic plant will be given up to two hours to enter the area to collect belongings.

The move came amid concern over the long-term health risks posed by high levels of accumulated radiation, despite signs of progress in bringing the stricken facility under control.

The 245 workers battling to stabilise Fukushima have fallen ill due to the harsh conditions inside the plant, experts warned.

Some are suffering from insomnia, dehydration and high blood pressure, and risk developing depression or heart trouble, Takeshi Tanigawa, chairman of the public health department at Ehime University’s medical school, told Associated Press.

The government has also extended the evacuation zone to several locations outside the 12-mile zone, including areas in which as many as 130,000 people had initially been asked to leave voluntarily or stay indoors. Residents in those areas will be given a month to evacuate.

The government’s chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, urged people living inside the no-entry zone to abide by the order for the sake of their health.

“The plant is not stable,” he told reporters. “We have been asking residents not to enter the area as there is a huge risk to their safety. We beg the understanding of residents.”

The no-entry edict prompted residents to rush back into the zone to grab as many belongings as they could before the order went into effect. Some wore white protective suits, facemasks or wet-weather gear they hoped would protect themselves from radiation.

A stream of cars, windows closed, later left the deserted neighbourhoods crammed with clothes and valuables.

“This is our last chance, but we aren’t going to stay long. We are just getting what we need and getting out,” Kiyoshi Kitajima, an X-ray technician who briefly returned to the hospital where he worked, told Associated Press.

The no-go order angered other evacuees who have been unable to make even a short visit home. “I initially thought we would be able to return within a few days, so I brought nothing with me except a bank card,” said Kazuko Suzuki, who fled her home in Futaba with her teenage son and daughter.

“I really want to go back. I want to check if our house is still there. My patience has run out. I just want to go home.”

Under the order, people who enter the zone without permission face fines of up to 100,000 yen (£740) and possible arrest.

Almost all of the 80,000 people living in the 12-mile zone have been evacuated, but some have refused to abandon their livestock or move from their homes into evacuation centres.

Police said about 60 families defied the evacuation order imposed when the crisis began, but some had been persuaded to leave.

The contaminated bodies of as many as 1,000 people who died in the 11 March earthquake and tsunami have yet to be recovered from the area.

Edano said that over the next one to two months, one resident per household would be permitted to return home on chartered buses to collect belongings.

They will be required to undergo radiation screening on their way out.

Those living within three kilometres of the plant and other areas where very high levels of radiation have been detected will not be allowed to return, even for a short period, the Kyodo news agency reported.

“We realise this is extremely inconvenient for residents, but we urge you to be patient,” Edano said.

The prime minister, Naoto Kan, flew to Fukushima prefecture on Thursday to explain the order to officials and evacuees. Kan, whose approval rating has fallen over his handling of the nuclear crisis, said the government would enforce the no-go zone order.

He asked the prefecture’s governor, Yuhei Sato, to help win the understanding of local communities, according to Kyodo.

Tens of thousands of people affected by the nuclear crisis, many of whom fled with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, face many more months living in evacuation centres.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], said last week it would take between six and nine months to bring down radiation levels and make the facility safe, a timeline some experts have described as optimistic.

Edano conceded that Tepco had not been adequately prepared to cope with the disaster. “Leaving aside the question of whether the accident could have been predicted, it is clear that there was insufficient preparation.

“We urge all nuclear plant operators to immediately take every possible precaution in light of the Fukushima disaster.”

A Tepco official on Wednesday admitted that fuel inside the plant’s No 1 reactor could be melting. ”I can’t say with absolute certainty that [the fuel] has not melted,” Junichi Matsumoto said, adding that the firm had been unable to confirm the condition of the reactor’s core.

Tanigawa, who has interviewed 80 workers, said fatigue, not radiation, posed the greatest immediate threat to their health. “Working conditions at the plant are harsh,” he said. “I am afraid that if this continues we will see a growing risk of health problems.”

The workers, along with firefighters and police officers, get little rest and are unable to take baths or eat fresh food, Tanigawa said, adding that they were under constant threat from radiation. In some parts of the plant, contamination levels are so high that only robots have been allowed to enter.

Tanigawa said the conditions contravene basic rights guaranteed by the constitution. When they are not working, the mostly middle-aged men sleep on the floor or a gymnasium at the nearby Fukushima Daini plant.

The workers, who put in four straight days, followed by two off, are exhibiting signs of acute stress brought on by fear of radiation and pleas from family members to leave their jobs. Some also lost homes and relatives in the tsunami.

An anonymous worker who had recently been inside the No 2 reactor’s turbine building likened the site to a battlefield. “I work at the plant because I want to save my hometown,” he told Asahi TV. “We have worked at the plant all this time. Who else would take on the job if we stopped?”

Tanigawa accused Tepco and the government of failing to support the workers. “They have been struggling for a month without rest,” he said. “Tepco and the government don’t think about them. They must do their jobs well, but they don’t have any support.”

In response to the criticisms, Tepco said it would strive to improve conditions at the site. “We think we have worked to improve food, sleeping hours and days off, so the conditions are getting better,” it said in a statement. “We would like to make further improvements, taking Dr Tanigawa’s views into account.”

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This article titled “Japan’s Fukushima plant evacuated after new earthquake” was written by Justin McCurry in Sendai, for The Guardian on Thursday 7th April 2011 19.44 UTC

Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were forced to evacuate on Thursday night after a powerful earthquake shook northeast Japan, almost a month to the day since the region was hit by a quake and tsunami that killed an estimated 28,000 people.

Two people were killed in the quake and more than 130 people injured, according to the national police agency. A 79-year-old man died of shock and a woman in her 60s was killed when power was cut to her oxygen tank.

Fears that the magnitude 7.1 quake, the strongest since the tsunami, would set off another series of huge waves subsided with the lifting of a tsunami warning about 90 minutes later.

The nuclear plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, said Thursday’s earthquake had not caused further damage to the facility, adding that workers battling to cool down overheating reactors had temporarily retreated to an on-site quake-resistant shelter.

The latest earthquake caused power outages across a wide area of northern Japan and knocked out several power lines at Onagawa nuclear power station north of Sendai city.

One remaining power line continued to supply electricity as normal, and there have been no reports of abnormal radiation levels in the area.

The plant’s spent fuel pools briefly lost cooling capacity but an emergency diesel generator quickly kicked in.

The earthquake struck 30 miles beneath the water off the coast of Sendai, about the same depth and location as the magnitude 9.0 quake on 11 March.

The earthquake hit shortly after 11.30pm local time. The violent shaking lasted about 30 seconds, hurling items on to the floor in the neighbourhood near the city’s main railway station.

In Miyagi prefecture motorways were closed and bullet train services were partially suspended.

In Sendai hotel guests and diners filed on to streets, some clutching torches as they began walking home in near-darkness.

Sirens from emergency vehicles filled the air, but more than three hours later there were no reports of major damage.

Police and the fire service officials said they had received numerous calls about fires and gas leaks. NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, said seven people had been injured, two of them seriously.

The earthquake sent the dollar sliding against the yen and wiped out early gains in European stock markets.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said progress was being made to stabilise the Fukushima Daiichi plant, where workers have been injecting nitrogen into a reactor to prevent a potentially explosive build-up of hydrogen gas.

“The situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains very serious,” Denis Flory, head of the IAEA’s nuclear safety department, told reporters.

But he added: “There are early signs of recovery in some functions such as electrical power and instrumentation.”

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This article titled “Japanese nuclear engineers plug Fukushima leak” was written by Ben Quinn, for The Guardian on Wednesday 6th April 2011 00.46 UTC

Engineers battling to contain the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant appeared to have turned an important corner last night after they stopped highly radioactive water from leaking into the ocean from one of the facility’s crippled reactors.

Workers struggling to halt the leaks successfully used a mixture of sawdust, newspaper, concrete and a type of liquid glass to stem the flow of contaminated water near a seaside pit, said the plant’s owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco).

Earlier efforts involving cement, an absorbent polymer and rags were unsuccessful in plugging the leak, which was discovered on Saturday, while radiation of more than 7.5 million times the legal limit for seawater was found just off the earthquake-hit plant.

In a sign of Tepco’s desperation, it breached its own regulations on Monday by beginning an intentional discharge of 11,500 tonnes of less contaminated water into the Pacific to make space for the highly radioactive liquid that was seeping out in an uncontrolled manner.

The company still needs to pump contaminated water into the sea because of a lack of storage space at the plant and will continue to release the 11,500 tonnes of low-level radioactive water until Friday. “The leaks were slowed yesterday after we injected a mixture of liquid glass and a hardening agent and it has now stopped,” a Tepco spokesman told Reuters.

A 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami hit Japan’s northeast coast on 11 March, leaving 28,000 people dead or missing and thousands homeless. It is the country’s worst catastrophe since the second world war.

Samples of the water used to cool the plant’s reactor No 2 were emitting 5 million times the legal limit of radioactivity, officials said on Tuesday, adding to fears that contaminants had spread far beyond the disaster zone. Workers are still struggling to restart cooling pumps – which recycle the water – in four reactors damaged by the earthquake and tsunami.

Until those are fixed, they must pump in water from outside to prevent overheating, and meltdowns. In the process, that creates more contaminated water that has to be pumped out and stored somewhere else or released into the sea.

The government is considering restrictions on seafood for the first time after contaminated fish were found. India is the first country to ban food imports from all areas of Japan over radiation fears.

Tepco has offered “condolence money” to those affected in the Fukushima region, but one city rejected the compensation and local mayors who came to Tokyo to meet the prime minister, Naoto Kan, demanded greater assistance.

“We have borne the risks, co-existed and flourished with Tepco for more than 40 years, and all these years, we have fully trusted the myth that nuclear plants are absolutely safe,” said Katsuya Endo, the mayor of Tomioka.

He was one of eight Fukushima prefecture mayors seeking compensation and support for employment, housing and education for the tens of thousands of evacuees.

A total of 60,000 tonnes of highly contaminated water remains in the plant after workers poured in seawater when fuel rods experienced partial meltdown after the earthquake and tsunami hit on March 11.

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This article titled “Fukushima soil contains plutonium traces, according to Japanese officials” was written by Justin McCurry in Tokyo and Suzanne Goldenberg in Nihonmatsu, for The Guardian on Tuesday 29th March 2011 00.55 UTC

Traces of plutonium have been found in the soil at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Japanese officials said on Monday, but not at levels considered harmful to human health.

The discovery of plutonium – a byproduct of nuclear reactions – added to anxiety over the stricken plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo.

Earlier, the government confirmed that levels of radioactivity in water leaking from a reactor at the facility resulted from a partial meltdown of fuel rods, amid growing fears that radiation may also have seeped into seawater and soil.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco], said readings of plutoinium-238, 239 and 240 were similar to those recorded in other parts of Japan after nuclear tests conducted overseas.

“I apologise for making people worried,” Tepco’s vice president, Sakae Muto, told reporters. “It’s not at a level that’s harmful to human health.”

But an official from Japan’s nuclear safety agency was more cautious. “While it’s not at a level harmful to human health, I am not optimistic,” Hidehiko Nishiyama said. “This means the containment mechanism is being breached, so I think the situation is worrisome.”

Tepco has yet to determine the source of the plutonium, although it appeared that in two places, the radioactive element had come from reactors rather than from the atmosphere. One of the plant’s three reactors contains plutonium in its fuel mix.

Meanwhile, contamination in a pool of water in the turbine building of the No 2 reactor was found to be 100,000 times normal levels, Tepco said.

On Sunday the firm said the figure was 10m times higher, a mistake the government’s chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said was “absolutely unforgivable”.

Tepco was forced into another embarrassing apology after it admitted it had twice named the wrong isotope in its corrections about the levels of radiation.

“On one hand, I do think the workers at the site are getting quite tired,” Edano told reporters. “But these radiation tests are being used for making various decisions on safety … they are absolutely unforgivable.”

In addition, radiation above 1,000 millisieverts per hour was found in surface water in concrete tunnels outside the No 2 reactor, Tepco said. It added that the tunnels did not lead to the sea, but conceded it could not rule out that radioactive water had seeped into the ground.

Greenpeace, meanwhile, said that it had recorded radiation levels of up to 10 microsieverts per hour in Iitate, a village 25 miles from the plant, and urged authorities to expand the evacuation zone from its current 12-mile radius.

“It is clearly not safe for people to remain in Iitate, especially children and pregnant women, when it could mean receiving the maximum-allowed dose of radiation in only a few days,” said Jan van de Putte, the group’s radiation safety expert. “When further contamination from possible ingestion or inhalation of radioactive particles is factored in, the risks are even higher.”

Tepco has reportedly asked the French nuclear sector for assistance, seeking help from Electricite de France, Areva and the Nuclear Energy Agency, a research body, according to Eric Besson, France’s industry and energy minister.

Japan’s nuclear and industrial safety agency (Nisa) said radioactive iodine-131 of 1,150 times the maximum allowable level had been detected in seawater near drainage outlets serving four of Fukushima’s reactors.

Nisa’s spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said he suspected radioactive water from the plant was leaking into the sea. On Sunday he had denied any connection.

Edano said partial meltdown had probably occurred when the plant was hit by the tsunami on 11 March, adding that there was no evidence of subsequent meltdown.

Four of the facility’s six reactors have yet to be made safe, while efforts are continuing to pump in fresh water to prevent a far more dangerous full meltdown.

“The radiation seems to have come from fuel rods that were partially melted down and came into contact with the water used to cool the reactor,” Edano said. “Steam may have condensed … carrying water from within the containment vessel.”

Airborne radiation has been confined to the reactor buildings, and work to remove contaminated water from the structures continued on Monday.

Setbacks to attempts to cool the reactors, and the realisation the crisis is far from over, have added to the plight of tens of thousands of people living nearby.

Sakae Muto, vice-president of Tepco, said: “Regrettably, we don’t have a concrete schedule at the moment to enable us to say how many months, or years it will take [to make the plant safe].”

About 70,000 people within a 12-mile radius of the Fukushima plant were evacuated soon after the disaster, while a further 130,000 people living in a 12-20-mile radius have been told to stay indoors. The government said that it had no plans to widen the evacuation zone.

It is not known exactly how many people remain in the outer zone. Many have left voluntarily after days without essential supplies and services.

Truck drivers are refusing to enter the zone, fearing radiation exposure.

The government created confusion last week when it advised people within a 20-mile radius to consider leaving. It insisted the advice was given due to concern for their quality of life, not exposure to harmful levels of radiation.

According to the public broadcaster NHK, self-defence force personnel in the evacuation zone said 30 people had yet to leave the 12-mile evacuation zone, and 10 had indicated they wanted to remain in their homes.

Evacuees have been urged not to return to the area to collect belongings while the Fukushima plant remains unstable. Residents who return, even temporarily, would expose themselves to “great risk of radiation contamination”, Edano said.

“It is very likely that the [12m] area is contaminated and there is a significant risk to health,” he added. Local authorities reported, however, that some people had already returned.

Others forced out of their homes are coming to terms with the possibility that they may never be able to return.

Even if they do, the many residents who depended on Tepco for employment accept that with the plant ruined, their chances of finding work in the area are close to nil.

A large number of evacuees have already moved twice since the nuclear crisis began, and could be forced to move again if the situation worsens and the evacuation zone is expanded.

“We’re assuming that in a worse-case scenario we might also be subject to evacuation,” Norio Hattori, a disaster official in Nihonmatsu, said, adding that he had sent his own daughter to Tokyo.

Some of the refugees are beginning to accept that a vast area surrounding the Fukushima plant could be condemned as a nuclear wasteland. “If it had been an earthquake or a tsunami, we could have gone home again, but because it’s radiation, we can’t,” said Tokuko Sujimoto.

Her home, in the village of Namie, was so close to the plant she heard the first reactor explosion on 12 March.

Her husband had watched from the roof of their house as a cloud of smoke rose from the reactor, before they fled.

Yoshimoto Nogi, who had a job at the Fukushima plant until he retired last summer, said he had no hopes of going home this year.

“It’s going to take a year or two. It is not a question of months,” said Nogi. “Even if the nuclear plant is stabilised tomorrow, I don’t think the government is going to tell us it is safe to go back any time soon.”

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This article titled “The truth about the Fukushima ‘nuclear samurai’” was written by Suzanne Goldenberg in Yonezawa, for The Guardian on Monday 21st March 2011 18.23 UTC

To a world that doesn’t know him, Shingo Kanno is one of the “nuclear samurai” – a selfless hero trying to save his country from a holocaust; to his family, Kanno is a new father whose life is in peril just because he wanted to earn some money on the side doing menial labour at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

A tobacco farmer, Kanno had no business being anywhere near a nuclear reactor – let alone in a situation as serious as the one that has unfolded after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

His great-uncle, Masao Kanno, said: “People are calling them nuclear samurai because people are sacrificing their lives to try to fix a leak. But people like Shingo are amateurs: they can’t really help. It shouldn’t be people like Shingo.”

Masao Kanno is one of more than 500 people camped out on the hardwood floors of a sports centre in Yonezawa. The homes of most of them lie within 19 miles of the Fukushima plant. They worked at the plant, have family members who did, or passed it daily on the way to work or school.

Before, they rarely thought about the down side to that proximity; now it rules their lives. Many of their homes are inside the evacuation zone, with radiation 17 times higher than background levels and tap water too contaminated to drink.

Those with a close personal connection to the crisis, like Masao Kanno, are moved and grateful for the personal courage of the 500 or so workers still at the plant. But where Japan’s prime minister and others have conjured up cardboard heroes, he sees a flesh-and-blood relation.

Shingo Kanno, who had been hired to do construction work, was released from his duties at Fukushima soon after the declaration of a nuclear emergency. As the crisis at the plant worsened, and the Japanese government widened the evacuation zone, he moved his wife and his infant daughter to his in-laws, where they would be safer.

He also helped evacuate his extended family from their home town of Minamisoma, which is within the 30km exclusion zone, to the sports centre and other shelters. Then, his relatives say, Kanno got a call from the plant asking him to go back to work.

His whole family took turns getting on the phone to tell him not to go. They reminded him that he was a farmer, not a nuclear engineer, that he did not have the skills for such a sophisticated crisis. They said he should think of his responsibilities to his parents and his baby daughter.

“I told him: ‘You have a family now. You shouldn’t be thinking about the company – you should be thinking about your own family,’” said Masao Kanno.

But on Friday Shingo Kanno went back anyway. The family have not heard from him since.

In the meantime, the cult of the nuclear samurai has only grown. Japanese television aired an interview with a plant worker on Monday offering a harrowing insider’s account of the struggle for the reactors.

The worker, his face hidden from view, described sirens blaring, billowing smoke, explosions so powerful the earth rumbled, water sloshing in the pool of spent atomic fuel. Then he touched on his own complicated emotions before pulling out of the plant. “The people left behind – I feel really sorry for them,” the worker said. “It was a hard decision to make, but I had a strong feeling that I wanted to get out.”

Such scenes stir powerful emotions in this sports centre, where evacuees are re-examining their own relationship with the Fukushima plant.

“I think you could say those nuclear workers have been brainwashed,” said Keiichi Yamomoto, who used to visit the plant regularly for business. “Japanese people are used to focusing their whole lives on their company, and their company takes priority over their own lives.”

He said the power company had a policy of locating nuclear facilities in sparsely populated areas with little local industry. Local people got jobs; the power company was able to increase its supply of electricity for Tokyo.

The Japanese government assented to the Fukushima plant; the prefecture government assented to it; even local people assented to the plant, when they took jobs as inspectors there, Yamomoto said. “It was a trade-off.”

Now they are experiencing the consequences of that assent.

People who built their lives around the nuclear plant without ever fully acknowledging its presence are now signing up for text updates of radiation readings from their home town.

Some evacuees in the sports hall say they cannot rely on the power company to give them accurate information. They are going to wait for the Japanese government to issue an all-clear before they consider returning home.

Others are wondering whether they are also somehow culpable in the disaster. Yoshizo Endo moved to live near the plant in 1970, when he became one of the first workers at the then newly opened Fukushima.

He spent more than 20 years as an inspector, undergoing regular safety exercises: fire drills, earthquake evacuations. But, he said, they never contemplated the prospect of a nuclear disaster. “Looking back, it’s easy to say now that we should have thought of that,” he said.

His wife, Tori, said the crisis at the plant, and the struggle of the nuclear workers, had made her increasingly uncomfortable: her husband had made a good living for years at the plant, and they were living on his pension even now. “I feel guilty,” she said.

Had Endo been called, he would have gone too, albeit as part of a team, he said. But he added: “I can’t really do anything in this kind of situation. The only thing I know how to do is hold a thermometer.”

Did he think the nuclear samurai would succeed in taming the reactors? “What will be will be,” said Endo.

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This article titled “Radiation leak thwarts bid to regain control of reactors” was written by Tania Branigan in Beijing, for The Guardian on Wednesday 16th March 2011 21.23 UTC

Japan embarked on a desperate series of initiatives to regain control as conditions at its failing nuclear plant deteriorated further on Wednesday . It called in helicopters, water cannon and even, reportedly, a US spy plane.

But the work was hampered by radiation levels that forced technicians to briefly suspend operations. They took shelter as the radiation level spiked at the site in the morning and only returned when the government more than doubled the safety limit determining the maximum legal dose of radiation for workers.

In a rare television appearance to express his sympathy for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami, Emperor Akihito voiced deep concern about the “unpredictable” situation at Fukushima.

There was also concern that the nuclear crisis had hampered relief efforts aimed at residents of the area. The government’s chief spokesman, Yukio Edano, said he had heard food and supplies were not being delivered to areas outside the evacuation zones and urged people not to overreact so that relief would get to survivors.

Officials appear to have lost all faith in ability of the plant’s operators, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, to handle the crisis.

A Japanese government source told Kyodo news agency that a US spy plane would fly over the facility on Thursday, in the hope that its infrared cameras could provide clues as to what was happening inside the reactor buildings.

Earlier, Naoto Kan, the prime minister, ordered officials to measure radiation levels across Japan and supply information to the public, with details on safe and unsafe levels.

The broadcaster NHK aired what at first appeared to be a weather forecast – with a suited presenter gesturing at the map behind her – but was in fact a guide to radiation readings across northeast Japan and Tokyo.

But while radiation levels in the capital have been higher than usual, hitting 10 times the normal levels at one point, they remained low judged by safety standards, as of Wednesday evening.

Although the US and UK were urging their nationals to move further from the region – less than 24 hours after assuring them that the Japanese measures were appropriate – the real threat was that facing workers at the plant.

Tepco evacuated hundreds of workers on Tuesday following a surge in radiation, leaving only a core team of 50 to 70 people, although some reports suggested more staff may have returned to the facility on Wednesday.

The first problems with the plant became evident shortly after the quake and tsunami, when it emerged that the cooling systems were failing to work.

Workers continue to pump seawater into the first three reactors, the initial cause of concern, in an attempt to contain the situation. Unit 1 is known to have experienced partial melting of the core and it is feared the others have too. That is particularly worrying in unit 2, which suffered damage to its containment vessel. The outer buildings of all three have been damaged by hydrogen explosions.

Attention is increasingly focusing on the threat posed by spent fuel rods, with signs of problems in storage pools at four of the units.

Experts say if the rods are exposed to the air their zirconium alloy coating could react and release radiation. Unlike the reactors, the pools are not contained – meaning that if they release radioactive material there is only the building to prevent it leaking further into the environment. In at least two of the affected units, that outer casing has been damaged.

The new danger emerged on Tuesday in unit 4 – under maintenance at the time of the tsunami – with news of a blaze and reports that water levels in the storage pool might be dropping. On Wednesday it suffered a second fire and smoke or steam began to emerge.

With the mood becoming increasingly desperate, officials contemplated a range of measures. At first they said Japanese forces would spray water over unit 3′s spent fuel pool and helicopters were seen taking to the air with buckets of seawater. But they landed again without approaching the reactors when experts judged the radiation risk to the pilots unacceptably high.

The plan was fraught with difficulties in any case. “My estimates suggest they might need 50 tonnes an hour of water. You could do that easily with a large-bore hosepipe but if you are doing it with helicopters it is a lot more difficult,” said Professor David Hinde, head of nuclear physics at the Australian National University.

A water cannon was brought into use at unit 4. It was not clear how officials planned to deal with unit 3.

The battle to control the plant gets harder as it goes on, not only because of the multiplying problems but because workers are increasingly tired and will have to be pulled out as they hit exposure limits.

“The longer it goes on, the more people are going to be on the bench,” said Hinde.

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This article titled “Japan nuclear crisis puts industry revival in doubt” was written by Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington, Fiona Harvey and John Vidal, for The Guardian on Tuesday 15th March 2011 20.43 UTC

Events in Japan could kill the last chances of revival for an American nuclear industry struggling to emerge from the shadow of its own disaster at Three Mile Island, experts have predicted.

Renewed fears about the technology may also snuff out a nuclear renaissance worldwide that had been sparked by fears over climate change and a need for low-carbon energy.

“This is going to be a Three Mile Island moment – maybe not a Chernobyl moment, but a Three Mile Island moment that is going to give people pause for at least several years,” said Alan Madian, an energy analyst at the Brattle consulting group. “There is no question that the public is going to be rightfully concerned.”

So far, the White House and Republicans are united in saying it would be premature to rethink plans for the first expansion of nuclear power in America since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.

In Europe, a meeting of EU energy ministers in Brussels on Tuesday agreed a series of “stress tests” for European nuclear facilities in response to the Japanese alert to check they could withstand a variety of different shocks, from earthquakes to terrorist attacks.

However, even as the crisis in Japan unfolds, investors appear already to be turning away from the technology.

“Shares in renewable energy industries yesterday rose while most other energy stocks fell,” said Clare Brook, fund manager of leading green investment group WHEB, in London. “This tragedy comes on top of the oil price rise, the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and unrest in the Middle East, all of which has made renewables more attractive. We would expect investment in renewables, especially solar, to increase. Nuclear has become politically unacceptable.”

The revival of nuclear energy had come partly on the back of fears about climate change and a need for reliable low-carbon energy sources. That revival may now be in doubt, but leading environmentalists who have backed the technology as a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels said the accident should not slow new nuclear investment.

The scientist James Lovelock said: “There is a monstrous myth about nuclear power. I would make a strong guess that of the tens of thousands of people killed in Japan, none of them will be from nuclear power.”

He said people were unreasonably prejudiced against nuclear power. “It is very safe,” he said.

Mark Lynas, another environmental campaigner who has espoused nuclear power as a way to limit climate change, was pessimistic about how nuclear power would be perceived after the Japanese experience.

“It’s too early to make a final diagnosis of what is happening in Japan, but what is obvious is that this will be a colossal setback for the nuclear industry at just the moment at which climate change is sparking a real renaissance,” he said.

In Europe a new caution towards nuclear power was led by Germany, which said seven reactors that went into operation before 1980 would be offline for three months while Europe’s biggest economy reconsiders its plans to extend the life of its atomic power plants.

The European Union’s energy commissioner called for a reassessment of what role nuclear power should have in the future. “We have to ask ourselves: can we in Europe, within time, secure our energy needs without nuclear power plants?” Günther Oettinger told ARD television in Germany.

He invited non-EU countries to join the initiative, including Switzerland, which announced on Monday that it was halting plans for new reactors.

Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, accused other European governments of “rushing to judgments” over the safety of nuclear power and took a public swipe at “continental politicians” hours after the German announcement.

Nevertheless, he insisted he was right to order a UK safety review amid warnings from MPs it could hit investment in a planned new generation of domestic nuclear power stations.

Elsewhere, a commitment to a nuclear future was affirmed by the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said he had no plans to suspend a deal with Russia’s Rosatom agency for the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.

Dismissing questions on possible dangers, Erdogan said all investments had high risks.

“In that case, let’s not bring gas canisters to our homes, let’s not install natural gas, let’s not stream crude oil through our country,” he said.

Russia also signed a deal with Belarus to build a nuclear power station there. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin said the facility would be safer than that threatened by meltdown in Japan.

In the US, political proponents of nuclear power also remained steadfast.

Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who has called for building 100 reactors in the next 20 years, called on America to cling fast to the nuclear dream.

“We don’t abandon highway systems because bridges and overpasses collapse during earthquakes,” he said in a speech to the Senate. “The 1.6 million of us who fly daily would not stop flying after a tragic plane crash. We would find out what happened and do our best to make it safe.”

One pro-nuclear congressman, Devin Nunes, a California Republican who has called for 200 new reactors by 2040, went so far as to suggest that the crisis in Japan demonstrated the safety of nuclear power.

“The facts, as we know them today, are not an indictment of nuclear energy safety,” he said. “Quite the reverse is true. The survival of the 40-year-old containment systems under such extreme conditions helps to prove the safety and durability of nuclear power.” In reality, America’s nuclear industry has been in a state of suspended animation since Three Mile Island.

The economics of energy production in the US – which has cheap fossil fuels and has resisted putting a price on carbon – have made it difficult to plot a comeback Now industry’s efforts to extend the life of a generation of ageing reactors – once thought a sure thing – could be in doubt. Some of those reactors, such as the Vermont Yankee, have a history of safety lapses and face growing local opposition.

Nuclear regulators gave the plant an additional 20 years to run on Thursday – just a day before the quake. The plant has the same containment design as the failed reactors in Japan. Now Vermont’s governor, Peter Shumlin, says he will push to close the plant on schedule in 2012.

“We act as if they can be run beyond their design life, when the engineering is primitive compared to what one would build today,” he told reporters. “I think the tragedy in Japan should awaken a re-examination of our irrational exuberance about running our aging plants beyond their design life.”

The Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the Japanese power company and other industry interests, had also been fighting hard to convince the public that reactors could help get America off imported oil.

According to Opensecrets.org, which examines the influence of money in politics, the NEI has more than 20 lobbyists on staff. It has spent more than million trying to influence Congress in the last three years.

Individual power companies have also expanded their lobbying spending. Southern Company, which has a project to build two new reactors in Georgia, has spent million a year on lobbying since 2004.But – so far at least – the industry has little to show for its efforts. Aside from Southern Company’s two reactors – which have yet to get final approval from regulators – there are only two other new nuclear reactors in the works, in South Carolina in 2020.

Another project, in Maryland, is in peril after a French company EDF pulled out.

“A nuclear bubble is what I’ve been calling it,” said Peter Bradford, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “It was dead in the water even before the events of the last week and of course it’s worse off now.”

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