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Tag: Tsunamis

  • Japan issues tsunami advisory after 6.7 magnitude quake in country’s northeast

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    TOKYO — Japan on Friday issued a tsunami advisory after a 6.7 magnitude earthquake shook the country’s northeast, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

    The quake occurred off the east coast of Aomori prefecture, in the north of Honshu, the main Japanese island, at a depth of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) at 11:44 a.m. local time, JMA said.

    The Pacific coast of Hokkaido, Aomori, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures could see a tsunami of up to 1 meter (3.2 feet), the agency added.

    Damage and injuries weren’t immediately clear.

    An advisory is a lower level of caution than a warning.

    Friday’s quake followed a 7.5 magnitude earthquake earlier this week in the north that caused injuries, light damage and a tsunami in Pacific coastal communities.

    At least 34 people were injured in that quake on Monday off the coast of Aomori, the northernmost prefecture of Japan’s main Honshu island. A tsunami more than 2 feet (0.6 meters) above tide levels was measured in Kuji port in Iwate prefecture before all tsunami advisories were lifted. Power was knocked out for hundreds of homes but was mostly restored Tuesday morning.

    Authorities had warned of possible aftershocks.

    Officials said after Monday’s quake there was also a slight increase in risk of a magnitude 8-level quake and possible tsunami occurring along Japan’s northeastern coast from Chiba, just east of Tokyo, to Hokkaido. The agency urged residents in 182 municipalities in the area to monitor their emergency preparedness in the coming week, reminding them that the caution is not a prediction of a big one.

    The quakes occurred in the coastal region, where a magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami in 2011 killed nearly 20,000 people and destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

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  • American e-waste causing ‘hidden tsunami’ in Southeast Asia, watchdog report says

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    HANOI, Vietnam — HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Millions of tons of discarded electronics from the United States are being shipped overseas, much of it to developing countries in Southeast Asia unprepared to safely handle hazardous waste, according to a new report released Wednesday by an environmental watchdog.

    The Seattle-based Basel Action Network, or BAN, said a two-year investigation found at least 10 U.S. companies exporting used electronics to Asia and the Middle East, in what it says is a “hidden tsunami” of electronic waste.

    “This new, almost invisible tsunami of e-waste, is taking place … padding already lucrative profit margins of the electronics recycling sector while allowing a major portion of the American public’s and corporate IT equipment to be surreptitiously exported to and processed under harmful conditions in Southeast Asia,” the report said.

    Electronic waste, or e-waste, includes discarded devices like phones and computers containing both valuable materials and toxic metals like lead, cadmium and mercury. As gadgets are replaced faster, global e-waste is growing five times quicker than it’s formally recycled.

    The world produced a record 62 million metric tons in 2022. That’s expected to climb to 82 million by 2030, according to the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union and its research arm, UNITAR.

    That American e-waste adds to the burden for Asia, which already produces nearly half the world’s total. Much of it is dumped in landfills, leaching toxic chemicals into the environment. Some ends up in informal scrapyards, where workers burn or dismantle devices by hand, often without protection, releasing toxic fumes and scrap.

    About 2,000 containers — roughly 33,000 metric tons (36,376 U.S. tons) — of used electronics leave U.S. ports every month, according to the report. It said the companies behind the shipments, described as “e-waste brokers,” typically don’t recycle the waste themselves but send it to companies in developing countries.

    The companies identified in the report include Attan Recycling, Corporate eWaste Solutions or CEWS, Creative Metals Group, EDM, First America Metal Corp., GEM Iron and Metal Inc., Greenland Resource, IQA Metals, PPM Recycling and Semsotai.

    Six of the companies didn’t immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

    Semsotai told The Associated Press that it doesn’t export scrap, only working components for reuse. It accused BAN of bias.

    PPM Recycling told The Associated Press that its warehouses in California and Texas ship only aluminum and other non-iron metals to Malaysia. It said BAN had exaggerated shipment volumes, adding that it used accurate trade codes and followed U.S. and international rules.

    Greenland Resource told The Associated Press it took the allegations seriously and was reviewing the matter internally and couldn’t comment further without seeing the report.

    CEWS said it follows strict environmental standards, but some aspects of where and how recycled materials are handled are industrial secrets.

    The report estimated that between January 2023 and February 2025, the 10 companies exported more than 10,000 containers of potential e-waste valued at over $1 billion, the report said. Industrywide, such trade could top $200 million a month.

    Eight of the 10 identified companies hold R2V3 certifications — an industry standard meant to ensure electronics are recycled safely and responsibly, raising questions about the value of such a certification, the report said.

    Several companies operate out of California, despite the state’s strict e-waste laws requiring full reporting and proper downstream handling of electronic and universal waste.

    Many e-waste containers go to countries that have banned such imports under the Basel Convention, which is an international treaty that bars hazardous waste trade from non-signatories like the U.S., the only industrialized nation yet to ratify it.

    The nonprofit said its review of government and private trade records from ships and customs officials showed shipments were often declared under trade codes that did not match those for electronic waste, such as “commodity materials” like raw metals or other recyclable goods to evade detection. Such classifications were “highly unlikely” given how the companies publicly describe their operations, the report said.

    Tony R. Walker, who studies global waste trade at the Dalhousie University’s School for Resource and Environmental Studies in Halifax in Canada, said he wasn’t surprised that e-waste continues to evade regulation. While some devices can be legally traded if functional, most such exports to developing nations are broken or obsolete and mislabeled, bound for landfills that pollute the environment and have little market value, he said.

    He pointed to Malaysia — a Basel Convention signatory identified in the report as the primary destination for U.S. e-waste — saying the country would be overwhelmed by that volume, in addition to waste from other wealthy nations.

    “It simply means the country is being overwhelmed with what is essentially pollution transfer from other nations,” he said.

    The report estimates that U.S. e-waste shipments may have made up about 6% of all U.S. exports to the country from 2023 to 2025. After China banned imports of foreign waste in 2017, many Chinese businesses shifted their operations to Southeast Asia, using family and business ties to secure permits.

    “Malaysia suddenly became this mecca of junk,” said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network.

    Containers were also sent to Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and the UAE, despite bans under the Basel Convention and national laws, the report added.

    In countries receiving this U.S. e-waste, “undocumented workers desperate for jobs” toil in makeshift facilities, inhaling toxic fumes as they strip wires, melt plastics and dismantle devices without protection, the report said.

    Authorities in Thailand and Malaysia have stepped up efforts to curb illegal imports of U.S. e-waste.

    In May, Thai authorities seized 238 tons of U.S. e-waste at Bangkok’s port seized 238 tons of U.S. scrap at Bangkok’s port while Malaysian authorities confiscated e-waste worth $118 million in nationwide raids in June.

    Most of the facilities in Malaysia were illegal and lacked environmental safeguards, said SiPeng Wong, of Malaysia’s Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism.

    Exporting e-waste from rich nations to developing nations strains local facilities, overwhelms efforts to manage domestic waste and is a form of “waste colonialism,” she said.

    ___

    This story has been corrected to show that one of the companies identified in the report is called First America Metal Corp., not First American Metals.

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  • Watchdog report says American e-waste is causing a ‘hidden tsunami’ in Southeast Asia

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    HANOI, Vietnam — HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Millions of tons of discarded electronics from the United States are being shipped overseas, much of it to developing countries in Southeast Asia unprepared to safely handle hazardous waste, according to a new report by an environmental watchdog.

    The Seattle-based Basel Action Network, or BAN, said a two-year investigation found at least 10 U.S. companies exporting used electronics to Asia and the Middle East, in what it says is a “hidden tsunami” of electronic waste.

    “This new, almost invisible tsunami of e-waste, is taking place … padding already lucrative profit margins of the electronics recycling sector while allowing a major portion of the American public’s and corporate IT equipment to be surreptitiously exported to and processed under harmful conditions in Southeast Asia,” the report said.

    Electronic waste, or e-waste, includes discarded devices like phones and computers containing both valuable materials and toxic metals like lead, cadmium and mercury. As gadgets are replaced faster, global e-waste is growing five times quicker than it’s formally recycled.

    The world produced a record 62 million metric tons in 2022. That’s expected to climb to 82 million by 2030, according to the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union and its research arm, UNITAR.

    That American e-waste adds to the burden for Asia, which already produces nearly half the world’s total. Much of it is dumped in landfills, leaching toxic chemicals into the environment. Some ends up in informal scrapyards, where workers burn or dismantle devices by hand, often without protection, releasing toxic fumes and scrap.

    About 2,000 containers — roughly 33,000 metric tons (36,376 U.S. tons) — of used electronics leave U.S. ports every month, according to the report. It said the companies behind the shipments, described as “e-waste brokers,” typically don’t recycle the waste themselves but send it to companies in developing countries.

    The companies identified in the report include Attan Recycling, Corporate eWaste Solutions or CEWS, Creative Metals Group, EDM, First American Metals, GEM Iron and Metal Inc., Greenland Resource, IQA Metals, PPM Recycling and Semsotai.

    Six of the companies did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

    Semsotai told The Associated Press that it does not export scrap, only working components for reuse. It accused BAN of bias.

    PPM Recycling told The Associated Press it complies with all regulations and accurately handles shipments through certified partners. Greenland Resource told The Associated Press it took the allegations seriously and was reviewing the matter internally. Both said they couldn’t comment further without seeing the report.

    CEWS said it follows strict environmental standards, but some aspects of where and how recycled materials are handled are industrial secrets.

    The report estimated that between January 2023 and February 2025, the 10 companies exported more than 10,000 containers of potential e-waste valued at over $1 billion, the report said. Industrywide, such trade could top $200 million a month.

    Eight of the 10 identified companies hold R2V3 certifications — an industry standard meant to ensure electronics are recycled safely and responsibly, raising questions about the value of such a certification, the report said.

    Several companies operate out of California, despite the state’s strict e-waste laws requiring full reporting and proper downstream handling of electronic and universal waste.

    Many e-waste containers go to countries that have banned such imports under the Basel Convention, which is an international treaty that bars hazardous waste trade from non-signatories like the U.S., the only industrialized nation yet to ratify it.

    The nonprofit said its review of government and private trade records from ships and customs officials showed shipments were often declared under trade codes that did not match those for electronic waste, such as “commodity materials” like raw metals or other recyclable goods to evade detection. Such classifications were “highly unlikely” given how the companies publicly describe their operations, the report said.

    Tony R. Walker, who studies global waste trade at the Dalhousie University’s School for Resource and Environmental Studies in Halifax in Canada, said he wasn’t surprised that e-waste continues to evade regulation. While some devices can be legally traded if functional, most such exports to developing nations are broken or obsolete and mislabeled, bound for landfills that pollute the environment and have little market value, he said.

    He pointed to Malaysia — a Basel Convention signatory identified in the report as the primary destination for U.S. e-waste — saying the country would be overwhelmed by that volume, in addition to waste from other wealthy nations.

    “It simply means the country is being overwhelmed with what is essentially pollution transfer from other nations,” he said.

    The report estimates that U.S. e-waste shipments may have comprised about 6% of all U.S. exports to the country from 2023 to 2025. After China banned imports of foreign waste in 2017, many Chinese businesses shifted their operations to Southeast Asia, using family and business ties to secure permits.

    “Malaysia suddenly became this mecca of junk,” said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network.

    Containers were also sent to Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and the UAE, despite bans under the Basel Convention and national laws, the report added.

    In countries receiving this U.S. e-waste, undocumented workers desperate for jobs toil in makeshift facilities, inhaling toxic fumes as they strip wires, melt plastics and dismantle devices without protection, the report said.

    Authorities in Thailand and Malaysia have stepped up efforts to curb illegal imports of U.S. e-waste.

    In May, Thai authorities seized 238 tons of U.S. e-waste at Bangkok’s port seized 238 tons of U.S. scrap at Bangkok’s port while Malaysian authorities confiscated e-waste worth $118 million in nationwide raids in June.

    Most of the facilities in Malaysia were illegal and lacked environmental safeguards, said SiPeng Wong of Malaysia’s Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism

    Exporting e-waste from rich nations to developing nations strains local facilities, overwhelms efforts to manage domestic waste and is a form of “waste colonialism,” she said.

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  • FACT FOCUS: No, Oprah Winfrey didn’t block access to a private road amid tsunami warning evacuations

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    Even as the threat of a tsunami swamping Hawaii had passed on Wednesday, social media posts were still circulating claims that Oprah Winfrey had refused immediate access to a private road that would allow residents a shorter evacuation route.

    The warnings followed one of the century’s most powerful earthquakes, an 8.8 magnitude quake that struck off a Russian peninsula and generated tsunami warnings and advisories for a wide swath of the Pacific. Posts on X and TikTok contended Winfrey refused to open her private road, or was slow to do so during the evacuation.

    But the roadway does not actually belong to Winfrey, and efforts to open the road to the public started soon after the tsunami warning was issued.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    CLAIM: Winfrey owns the private road and refused to allow public access for residents trying to reach higher ground, only relenting following public pressure.

    FACT: This is false. Despite being commonly known as “Oprah’s road,” the portion of Kealakapu Road is privately owned — but not by Winfrey. It belongs to Haleakala Ranch, which also owns the land surrounding the road, its president Scott Meidell told The Associated Press. Winfrey has an easement agreement with the ranch, which allows her to use and make certain improvements to the road, her representative told the AP in a statement. Winfrey has paved the road as part of the agreement, Meidell said.

    The decision to open the road to the public is principally up to the landowner, Winfrey’s representative noted. Meidell said Haleakala Ranch “had conversations with Ms. Winfrey’s land management staff during this process. So, they’re consulted to be sure.”

    Haleakala Ranch contacted the local fire department and the Maui Emergency Management Agency just after 3 p.m. local time, shortly after the tsunami warning went into effect, Meidell said. The road was made accessible shortly after 5 p.m., he said, and ranch personnel assisted in the evacuation of around 150 to 200 vehicles until the final group of cars were escorted up the road at 7 p.m.

    Maui County officials said in a press release shortly after 7 p.m. Tuesday that “Oprah’s road” was accessible to the public, an advisory repeated in a 9:30 p.m. update. But Meidell said further evacuations weren’t necessary after 7 p.m. because police had confirmed “at that point the highway was completely empty of traffic.”

    Maui police and the Maui Emergency Management Agency did not immediately return the AP’s requests for comment.

    “As soon as we heard the tsunami warnings, we contacted local law enforcement and FEMA to ensure the road was opened. Any reports otherwise are false,” a representative for Winfrey wrote in a statement first disseminated to news outlets Tuesday night. The decision to open the road was made quickly “when the warning was issued to evacuate, working with local officials and Oprah’s Ranch,” the representative added in a statement Wednesday.

    Cars were escorted in separate caravans that each “had a lead vehicle and a sweep vehicle to make sure that there weren’t any incidents on the mountain road,” Meidell said.

    Haleakala Ranch encompasses nearly 30,000 acres of open space from the southern shoreline to Upcountry Maui, according to its website, and has been family-owned and operated since the late 1800s. The private road connects a public roadway with a highway on the island’s oceanside.

    Some Hawaii residents have long expressed frustration with the large swaths of land that wealthy public figures like Winfrey own on Maui and have advocated against short-term rentals that dot the region and worsen the already low housing supply. The islands have faced a chronic housing shortage only exacerbated in 2023 when a deadly wildfire destroyed most of Lahaina, a town on Maui and the historic former capital of the Hawaiian kingdom. The wildfire was the deadliest in U.S. history in a century that left more than 100 people dead.

    Users claimed with no evidence then that Winfrey had hired private firefighters to protect her land before the fires started, and hired security to keep others of her land during the evacuations. Some X users also spread false claims linking Winfrey to the cause of the blaze. Winfrey teamed up with Dwayne Johnson to launch the People’s Fund for Maui and committed $10 million to help residents who lost their homes in the wildfires. The fund raised almost $60 million as of April 2024.

    In 2019, Winfrey confirmed on X, then Twitter, that county officials were given permission to use the private road immediately after a brush fire started on Maui’s southern area. The road ultimately was not used, Maui County spokesperson Chris Sugidono told the AP at the time.

    ___

    Associated Press National Writer Hillel Italie contributed reporting.

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • A tiny grain of nuclear fuel is pulled from ruined Japanese nuclear plant, in a step toward cleanup

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    TOKYO — A robot that has spent months inside the ruins of a nuclear reactor at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant delivered a tiny sample of melted nuclear fuel on Thursday, in what plant officials said was a step toward beginning the cleanup of hundreds of tons of melted fuel debris.

    The sample, the size of a grain of rice, was placed into a secure container, marking the end of the mission, according to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which manages the plant. It is being transported to a glove box for size and weight measurements before being sent to outside laboratories for detailed analyses over the coming months.

    Plant chief Akira Ono has said it will provide key data to plan a decommissioning strategy, develop necessary technology and robots and learn how the accident had developed.

    Despite multiple probes in the years since the 2011 disaster that wrecked the plant and forced thousands of nearby residents to leave their homes, much about the site’s highly radioactive interior remains a mystery.

    The sample, the first to be retrieved from inside a reactor, was significantly less radioactive than expected. Officials had been concerned that it might be too radioactive to be safely tested even with heavy protective gear, and set an upper limit for removal out of the reactor. The sample came in well under the limit.

    That’s led some to question whether the robot extracted the nuclear fuel it was looking for from an area in which previous probes have detected much higher levels of radioactive contamination, but TEPCO officials insist they believe the sample is melted fuel.

    The extendable robot, nicknamed Telesco, first began its mission August with a plan for a two-week round trip, after previous missions had been delayed since 2021. But progress was suspended twice due to mishaps — the first involving an assembly error that took nearly three weeks to fix, and the second a camera failure.

    On Oct. 30, it clipped a sample weighting less than 3 grams (.01 ounces) from the surface of a mound of melted fuel debris sitting on the bottom of the primary containment vessel of the Unit 2 reactor, TEPCO said.

    Three days later, the robot returned to an enclosed container, as workers in full hazmat gear slowly pulled it out.

    On Thursday, the gravel, whose radioactivity earlier this week recorded far below the upper limit set for its environmental and health safety, was placed into a safe container for removal out of the compartment.

    The sample return marks the first time the melted fuel is retrieved out of the containment vessel.

    Fukushima Daiichi lost its key cooling systems during a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, causing meltdowns in its three reactors. An estimated 880 tons of fatally radioactive melted fuel remains in them.

    The government and TEPCO have set a 30-to-40-year target to finish the cleanup by 2051, which experts say is overly optimistic and should be updated. Some say it would take for a century or longer.

    No specific plans for the full removal of the fuel debris or its final disposal have been decided.

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  • A robot resumes mission to retrieve a piece of melted fuel from inside a damaged Fukushima reactor

    A robot resumes mission to retrieve a piece of melted fuel from inside a damaged Fukushima reactor

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    An extendable robot on Tuesday resumed its entry into one of three damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to retrieve a fragment of melted fuel debris, nearly three weeks after its earlier attempt was suspended due to a technical issue.

    The collection of a tiny sample of the spent fuel debris from inside of the Unit 2 reactor marks the start of the most challenging part of the decadeslong decommissioning of the plant where three reactors were destroyed in the March 11, 2011, magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

    The sample-return mission, initially scheduled to begin on Aug. 22, was suspended when workers noticed that a set of five 1.5-meter (5-foot) add-on pipes to push in and maneuver the robot were in the wrong order and could not be corrected within the time limit for their radiation exposure, the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said.

    The pipes were to be used to push the robot inside and pull it back out when it finished. Once inside the vessel, the robot is operated remotely from a safer location.

    The robot, nicknamed “telesco,” can extend up to about 22 meters (72 feet), including the pipes pushing it from behind, to reach its target area to collect a fragment from the surface of the melted fuel mound using a device equipped with tongs that hang from the of the robot.

    The mission to obtain the fragment and return with it is to last about two weeks.

    The mix-up, which TEPCO called a “basic mistake,” triggered disappointment and raised concerns from officials and local residents. Industry Minister Ken Saito ordered TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa a thorough investigation of the cause and preventive steps before resuming the mission.

    The pipes were brought into the Unit 2 reactor building and pre-arranged at the end of July by workers from the robot’s prime contractor and its subsidiary, but their final status was never checked until the problem was found.

    TEPCO concluded the mishap was caused by a lack of attention, checking and communication between the operator and workers on the ground. By Monday, the equipment was reassembled in the right order and ready for a retrial, the company said.

    The goal of the operation is to bring back less than 3 grams (0.1 ounce) of an estimated 880 tons of fatally radioactive molten fuel that remain in three reactors. The small sample will provide key data to develop future decommissioning methods and necessary technology and robots, experts say.

    The government and TEPCO are sticking to a 30 to 40-year cleanup target set soon after the meltdown, despite criticism it is unrealistic. No specific plans for the full removal of the melted fuel debris or its storage have been decided.

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  • A robot’s attempt to get a sample of the melted nuclear fuel at Japan’s damaged reactor is suspended

    A robot’s attempt to get a sample of the melted nuclear fuel at Japan’s damaged reactor is suspended

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    TOKYO — An attempt to use an extendable robot to remove a fragment of melted fuel from a wrecked reactor at Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was suspended Thursday due to a technical issue.

    The collection of a tiny sample of the debris inside the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel would start the fuel debris removal phase, the most challenging part of the decadeslong decommissioning of the plant where three reactors were destroyed in the March 11, 2011, magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

    The work was stopped when workers noticed that five 1.5-meter (5-foot) pipes used to maneuver the robot were placed in the wrong order and could not be corrected within the time limit for their radiation exposure, the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said.

    The pipes were to be used to push the robot inside and pull it back out when it finished. Once inside the vessel, the robot is operated remotely from a safer location.

    The robot can extend up to about 22 meters (72 feet) to reach its target area to collect a fragment from the surface of the melted fuel mound using a device equipped with tongs that hang from the tip of the robot.

    The mission to obtain the fragment and return with it is to last two weeks. TEPCO said a new start date is undecided.

    TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa said the priority was safety rather than rushing the process and that he planned to investigate the cause of the pipe setup problem.

    “I understand that the decision was to stop and not push when there was a concern,” Kobayakawa told reporters in the north-cenral prefecture of Niigata, where he visited to discuss another TEPCO-operated nuclear power plant with the local community.

    The sample-return mission is a first crucial step of a decades-long decommissioning at the Fukushima Daiichi. But its goal to bring back less than 3 grams (0.1 ounce) of an estimated 880 tons of fatally radioactive molten fuel underscores the daunting challenges.

    Despite the small amount of the debris sample, it will provide key data to develop future decommissioning methods and necessary technology and robots, experts say.

    Better understanding of the melted fuel debris is key to decommissioning the three wrecked reactors and the entire plant.

    The government and TEPCO are sticking to a 30-40-year cleanup target set soon after the meltdown, despite criticism it is unrealistic. No specific plans for the full removal of the melted fuel debris or its storage have been decided.

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  • Indonesians leave homes near erupting volcano and airport closes due to ash danger

    Indonesians leave homes near erupting volcano and airport closes due to ash danger

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    MANADO, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities closed an airport and residents left homes near an erupting volcano Thursday due to the dangers of spreading ash, falling rocks, hot volcanic clouds and the possibility of a tsunami.

    Mount Ruang on the northern side of Sulawesi Island had at least five large eruptions Wednesday, causing the Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation to issue its highest-level alert, indicating an active eruption.

    The crater emitted white-gray smoke continuously during the day Thursday, reaching more than 500 meters (1,600 feet) above the peak.

    People have been ordered to stay at least 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) from the 725-meter (2,378 foot) mountain. More than 11,000 people live in the affected area and were told to leave. At least 800 have done so.

    An international airport in Manado city was temporarily closed Thursday as volcanic ash was spewed into the air.

    “We have to close flight operations at Sam Ratulangi Airport due to the spread of volcanic ash, which could endanger flight safety,” said Ambar Suryoko, head of the regional airport authority.

    Eruptions Wednesday evening spewed volcanic ash approximately 70,000 feet into the atmosphere, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre. The bureau said in a statement Thursday it was tracking and forecasting the ash dispersion.

    Indonesia’s volcanology center noted the risks from the volcanic eruption include the possibility that part of the volcano could collapse into the sea and cause a tsunami. In December 2018, Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano island erupted and collapsed, losing around 3/4 its volume and triggering a powerful tsunami that killed more than 400 people. An 1871 eruption at Mount Ruang also triggered a tsunami.

    Tagulandang Island, east of the Ruang volcano, could be at risk if a collapse occurred. Its residents were among those being told to evacuate.

    “People who live in the Tagulandang Island area and are within a 6-kilometer radius must be immediately evacuated to a safe place outside the 6-kilometer radius,” Abdul Muhari, spokesperson of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said Thursday. “And especially those who live near the coast should be aware of the potential for incandescent rocks to erupt, hot clouds and tsunami waves that could be triggered by the collapse of a volcanic body into the sea.”

    The agency said residents will be relocated to Manado, the nearest city, on Sulawesi island — a six-hour journey by boat.

    Indonesia, an archipelago of 270 million people, has 120 active volcanoes. It is prone to volcanic activity because it sits along the “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the Pacific Ocean.

    ___

    AP writer Rod McGuirk contributed from Sydney.

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  • Strong quake in southwestern Japan leaves 9 with minor injuries, but no tsunami

    Strong quake in southwestern Japan leaves 9 with minor injuries, but no tsunami

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    Japanese authorities say that a strong earthquake that struck the country’s southwest Japan late Wednesday, leaving nine people with minor injuries and causing damage such as burst of water pipes and small landslides, but there was no danger of a tsunami

    TOKYO — A strong earthquake that struck southwestern Japan late Wednesday left nine people with minor injuries and caused damages such as burst water pipes and small landslides, authorities said, but there was no danger of a tsunami.

    The magnitude 6.6 quake was centered just off the western coast of the southwestern main island of Shikoku, in an area called the Bungo Channel, a strait separating Shikoku and the southern main island of Kyushu.

    The quake occurred 50 kilometers (30 miles) below the sea’s surface and posed no danger of a tsunami, the Japanese Meteorological Agency said.

    The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said Thursday that six in Ehime prefecture, two in neighboring Kochi and two others in Oita on Kyushu island suffered minor injuries, mostly from falling at home.

    Water pipes were ruptured at a number of locations in Sukumo City in Kochi prefecture, and grave stones collapsed at a Buddhist temple in Ainan town in Ehime prefecture, according to local media reports. Falling rooftiles were also reported.

    The Nuclear Regulation Authority said no abnormalities were reported from four reactors operating at three nuclear power plants in Shikoku and Kyushu.

    As part of the Pacific “ring of fire,” Japan is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone areas. The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in March 2011 devastated large areas along Japan’s northeastern coast, killing nearly 20,000 people and triggering the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdowns. On Jan. 1, a magnitude 7.6 quake struck the north-central region of Noto and left 241 people dead.

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  • Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in nearly 25 years damages buildings, leaving 4 dead

    Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in nearly 25 years damages buildings, leaving 4 dead

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    TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan’s strongest earthquake in a quarter century rocked the island during the morning rush hour Wednesday, damaging buildings and highways and causing the deaths of four people.

    Taiwan’s national fire agency said four people died in Hualien County and at least 57 were injured in the quake that struck just before 8 a.m. The local United Daily News reported three hikers died in rockslides in Taroko National Park near the offshore epicenter.

    A five-story building in Hualien appeared heavily damaged, collapsing its first floor and leaving the rest leaning at a 45-degree angle. In the capital Taipei, tiles fell from older buildings and in some newer office complexes, while debris fell from some building sites. Schools evacuated their students to sports fields, equipping them with yellow safety helmets. Some also covered themselves with textbooks to guard against falling objects as aftershocks continued.

    Train service was suspended across the island of 23 million people, as was subway service in Taipei, where a newly constructed above-ground line partially separated. The national legislature, a converted school built before World War II, also had damage to walls and ceilings.

    Traffic along the east coast was at a virtual standstill, with landslides and falling debris hitting tunnels and highways in the mountainous region. Those caused damage to vehicles, though it wasn’t clear if anyone was hurt.

    Despite the quake striking at the height of the morning rush hour just before 8 a.m., the initial panic faded quickly on the island, which is regularly rocked by temblors and prepares for them with drills at schools and notices issued via public media and mobile phone.

    Authorities said they had only expected a relatively mild quake of magnitude 4 and accordingly did not send out alerts.

    Still, the earthquake was strong enough to scare people who are used to such shaking.

    “Earthquakes are a common occurrence, and I’ve grown accustomed to them. But today was the first time I was scared to tears by an earthquake,” Taipei resident Hsien-hsuen Keng said. ”I was awakened by the earthquake. I had never felt such intense shaking before.”

    She said her fifth-floor apartment shook so hard that “apart from earthquake drills in elementary school, this was the first time I had experienced such a situation.”

    Hualien was last struck by a deadly quake in 2018, which collapsed a historic hotel and other buildings. Taiwan‘s worst quake in recent years struck on Sept. 21, 1999, with a magnitude of 7.7, causing 2,400 deaths, injuring around 100,000 and destroying thousands of buildings.

    The Japan Meteorological Agency said a tsunami wave of 30 centimeters (about 1 foot) was detected on the coast of Yonaguni island about 15 minutes after the quake struck. Smaller waves were measured in Ishigaki and Miyako islands. Japan sent military aircraft to gather information about the impact around the Okinawa region.

    Taiwan’s earthquake monitoring agency gave the magnitude as 7.2 while the U.S. Geological Survey put it at 7.4. It struck about 18 kilometers (11.1 miles) south-southwest of Hualien and was about 35 kilometers (21 miles) deep. Multiple aftershocks followed, and the USGS said one of the subsequent quakes was 6.5 magnitude and 11.8 kilometers (7 miles) deep. Shallower quakes tend to cause more surface damage.

    The earthquake was felt in Shanghai and several provinces along China’s southeastern coast, according to Chinese media. China and Taiwan are about 160 kilometers (100 miles) apart. China issued no tsunami warnings for the Chinese mainland.

    Residents of China’s Fujian province reported violent shaking, according to Jimu News, an online outlet. One man told Jimu that the shaking awakened him and lasted about a minute.

    In the Philippines, residents along the northern coast were told to evacuate to higher ground, but no major tsunami was reported about three hours after the quake.

    Villagers in the provinces of Batanes, Cagayan, Ilocos Norte and Isabela were asked not to return to their homes until the tsunami alert was lifted, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology Teresito Bacolcol said.

    Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said there has been no report of injury or damage in Japan. He urged the residents in the Okinawa region to stay on high ground until all tsunami advisories are lifted. He cautioned people against disinformation and urged them to stay calm and assist others.

    The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no tsunami threat to Hawaii or the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. About three hours after the earthquake, it said the threat had largely passed for all areas with waves being reported only in Taiwan and southern Japan.

    Taiwan lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the line of seismic faults encircling the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.

    ___

    Associated Press journalists Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Ken Moritsugu in Beijing, Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, Lorian Belanger in Bangkok. Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu, and Simina Mistreanu in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.

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  • 2011 Japan Earthquake – Tsunami Fast Facts | CNN

    2011 Japan Earthquake – Tsunami Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March of 2011.

    March 11, 2011 – At 2:46 p.m., a 9.1 magnitude earthquake takes place 231 miles northeast of Tokyo at a depth of 15.2 miles.

    The earthquake causes a tsunami with 30-foot waves that damage several nuclear reactors in the area.

    It is the largest earthquake ever to hit Japan.

    Number of people killed and missing

    (Source: Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency)

    The combined total of confirmed deaths and missing is more than 22,000 (nearly 20,000 deaths and 2,500 missing). Deaths were caused by the initial earthquake and tsunami and by post-disaster health conditions.

    At the time of the earthquake, Japan had 54 nuclear reactors, with two under construction, and 17 power plants, which produced about 30% of Japan’s electricity (IAEA 2011).

    Material damage from the earthquake and tsunami is estimated at about 25 trillion yen ($300 billion).

    There are six reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, located about 65 km (40 miles) south of Sendai.

    A microsievert (mSv) is an internationally recognized unit measuring radiation dosage. People are typically exposed to a total of about 1,000 microsieverts in one year.

    The Japanese government estimated that the tsunami swept about five million tons of debris offshore, but that 70% sank, leaving 1.5 million tons floating in the Pacific Ocean. The debris was not considered to be radioactive.

    READ MORE: Fukushima: Five years after Japan’s worst nuclear disaster

    All times and dates are local Japanese time.

    March 11, 2011 – At 2:46 p.m., an 8.9 magnitude earthquake takes place 231 miles northeast of Tokyo. (8.9 = original recorded magnitude; later upgraded to 9.0, then 9.1.)
    – The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issues a tsunami warning for the Pacific Ocean from Japan to the US. About an hour after the quake, waves up to 30 feet high hit the Japanese coast, sweeping away vehicles, causing buildings to collapse, and severing roads and highways.
    – The Japanese government declares a state of emergency for the nuclear power plant near Sendai, 180 miles from Tokyo. Sixty to seventy thousand people living nearby are ordered to evacuate to shelters.

    March 12, 2011 – Overnight, a 6.2 magnitude aftershock hits the Nagano and Niigata prefectures (USGS).
    – At 5:00 a.m., a nuclear emergency is declared at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Officials report the earthquake and tsunami have cut off the plant’s electrical power, and that backup generators have been disabled by the tsunami.
    – Another aftershock hits the west coast of Honshu – 6.3 magnitude. (5:56 a.m.)
    – The Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency announces that radiation near the plant’s main gate is more than eight times the normal level.
    – Cooling systems at three of the four units at the Fukushima Daini plant fail prompting state of emergency declarations there.
    – At least six million homes – 10% of Japan’s households – are without electricity, and a million are without water.
    – The US Geological Survey says the quake appears to have moved Honshu, Japan’s main island, by eight feet and has shifted the earth on its axis.
    – About 9,500 people – half the town’s population – are reported to be unaccounted for in Minamisanriku on Japan’s Pacific coast.

    March 13, 2011 – People living within 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) of the Fukushima Daini and 20 kilometers of the Fukushima Daiichi power plants begin a government-ordered evacuation. The total evacuated so far is about 185,000.
    – 50,000 Japan Self-Defense Forces personnel, 190 aircraft and 25 ships are deployed to help with rescue efforts.
    – A government official says a partial meltdown may be occurring at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant, sparking fears of a widespread release of radioactive material. So far, three units there have experienced major problems in cooling radioactive material.

    March 14, 2011 – The US Geological Survey upgrades its measure of the earthquake to magnitude 9.0 from 8.9.
    – An explosion at the Daiichi plant No. 3 reactor causes a building’s wall to collapse, injuring six. The 600 residents remaining within 30 kilometers of the plant, despite an earlier evacuation order, have been ordered to stay indoors.
    – The No. 2 reactor at the Daiichi plant loses its cooling capabilities. Officials quickly work to pump seawater into the reactor, as they have been doing with two other reactors at the same plant, and the situation is resolved. Workers scramble to cool down fuel rods at two other reactors at the plant – No. 1 and No. 3.
    – Rolling blackouts begin in parts of Tokyo and eight prefectures. Downtown Tokyo is not included. Up to 45 million people will be affected in the rolling outages, which are scheduled to last until April.

    March 15, 2011 – The third explosion at the Daiichi plant in four days damages the suppression pool of reactor No. 2. Water continues to be injected into “pressure vessels” in order to cool down radioactive material.

    March 16, 2011 – The nuclear safety agency investigates the cause of a white cloud of smoke rising above the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Plans are canceled to use helicopters to pour water onto fuel rods that may have burned after a fire there, causing a spike in radiation levels. The plume is later found to have been vapor from a spent-fuel storage pool.
    – In a rare address, Emperor Akihito tells the nation to not give up hope, that “we need to understand and help each other.” A televised address by a sitting emperor is an extraordinarily rare event in Japan, usually reserved for times of extreme crisis or war.
    – After hydrogen explosions occur in three of the plant’s reactors (1, 2 and 3), Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says radiation levels “do not pose a direct threat to the human body” between 12 to 18 miles (20 to 30 kilometers) from the plant.

    March 17, 2011 – Gregory Jaczko, head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, tells US Congress that spent fuel rods in the No. 4 reactor have been exposed because there “is no water in the spent fuel pool,” resulting in the emission of “extremely high” levels of radiation.
    – Helicopters operated by Japan’s Self-Defense Forces begin dumping tons of seawater from the Pacific Ocean on to the No. 3 reactor to reduce overheating.
    – Radiation levels hit 20 millisieverts per hour at an annex building where workers have been trying to re-establish electrical power, “the highest registered (at that building) so far.” (Tokyo Electric Power Co.)

    March 18, 2011 – Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency raises the threat level from 4 to 5, putting it on a par with the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania. The International Nuclear Events Scale says a Level 5 incident means there is a likelihood of a release of radioactive material, several deaths from radiation and severe damage to the reactor core.

    April 12, 2011 – Japan’s nuclear agency raises the Fukushima Daiichi crisis from Level 5 to a Level 7 event, the highest level, signifying a “major accident.” It is now on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union, which amounts to a “major release of radioactive material with widespread health and environmental effects requiring implementation of planned and extended countermeasures.”

    June 6, 2011 – Japan’s Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters reports reactors 1, 2 and 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced a full meltdown.

    June 30, 2011 – The Japanese government recommends more evacuations of households 50 to 60 kilometers northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. The government said higher radiation is monitored sporadically in this area.

    July 16, 2011 – Kansai Electric announces a reactor at the Ohi nuclear plant will be shut down due to problems with an emergency cooling system. This leaves only 18 of Japan’s 54 nuclear plants producing electricity.

    October 31, 2011 – In response to questions about the safety of decontaminated water, Japanese government official Yasuhiro Sonoda drinks a glass of decontaminated water taken from a puddle at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

    November 2, 2011 – Kyushu Electric Power Co. announces it restarted the No. 4 reactor, the first to come back online since the March 11 disaster, at the Genkai nuclear power plant in western Japan.

    November 17, 2011 – Japanese authorities announce that they have halted the shipment of rice from some farms northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after finding higher-than-allowed levels of radioactive cesium.

    December 5, 2011 – Tokyo Electric Power Company announces at least 45 metric tons of radioactive water have leaked from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility and may have reached the Pacific Ocean.

    December 16, 2011 – Japan’s Prime Minister says a “cold shutdown” has been achieved at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a symbolic milestone which means the plant’s crippled reactors have stayed at temperatures below the boiling point for some time.

    December 26, 2011 – Investigators report poorly trained operators at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant misread a key backup system and waited too long to start pumping water into the units, according to an interim report from the government committee probing the nuclear accident.

    February 27, 2012 – Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, an independent fact-finding committee, releases a report claiming the Japanese government feared the nuclear disaster could lead to an evacuation of Tokyo while at the same time hiding its most alarming assessments of the nuclear disaster from the public as well as the United States.

    May 24, 2012 – TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.) estimates about 900,000 terabecquerels of radioactive materials were released between March 12 and March 31 in 2011, more radiation than previously estimated.

    June 11, 2012 – At least 1,324 Fukushima residents lodge a criminal complaint with the Fukushima prosecutor’s office, naming Tsunehisa Katsumata, the chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and 32 others responsible for causing the nuclear disaster which followed the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and exposing the people of Fukushima to radiation.

    June 16, 2012 – Despite public objections, the Japanese government approves restarting two nuclear reactors at the Kansai Electric Power Company in Ohi in Fukui prefecture, the first reactors scheduled to resume since all nuclear reactors were shut down in May 2012.

    July 1, 2012 – Kansai Electric Power Co. Ltd. (KEPCO) restarts the Ohi nuclear plant’s No. 3 reactor, resuming nuclear power production in Japan for the first time in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown following the tsunami.

    July 5, 2012 – The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission’s report finds that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis was a “man-made disaster” which unfolded as a result of collusion between the facility’s operator, regulators and the government. The report also attributes the failings at the plant before and after March 11 specifically to Japanese culture.

    July 23, 2012 – A Japanese government report is released criticizing TEPCO. The report says the measures taken by TEPCO to prepare for disasters were “insufficient,” and the response to the crisis “inadequate.”

    October 12, 2012 – TEPCO acknowledges in a report it played down safety risks at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant out of fear that additional measures would lead to a plant shutdown and further fuel public anxiety and anti-nuclear movements.

    July 2013 – TEPCO admits radioactive groundwater is leaking into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi site, bypassing an underground barrier built to seal in the water.

    August 28, 2013 – Japan’s nuclear watchdog Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) says a toxic water leak at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant has been classified as a Level 3 “serious incident” on an eight-point International Nuclear Event Scale (lINES) scale.

    September 15, 2013 – Japan’s only operating nuclear reactor is shut down for maintenance. All 50 of the country’s reactors are now offline. The government hasn’t said when or if any of them will come back on.

    November 18, 2013 – Tokyo Electric Power Co. says operators of the Fukushima nuclear plant have started removing 1,500 fuel rods from damaged reactor No. 4. It is considered a milestone in the estimated $50 billion cleanup operation.

    February 20, 2014 – TEPCO says an estimated 100 metric tons of radioactive water has leaked from a holding tank at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

    August 11, 2015 – Kyushu Electric Power Company restarts No. 1 reactor at the Sendai nuclear power plant in Kagoshima prefecture. It is the first nuclear reactor reactivated since the Fukushima disaster.

    October 19, 2015 – Japan’s health ministry says a Fukushima worker has been diagnosed with leukemia. It is the first cancer diagnosis linked to the cleanup.

    February 29, 2016 – Three former TEPCO executives are indicted on charges of professional negligence related to the disaster at the Fukushiima Daiichi plant.

    November 22, 2016 – A 6.9 magnitude earthquake hits the Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures and is considered an aftershock of the 2011 earthquake. Aftershocks can sometimes occur years after the original quake.

    February 2, 2017 – TEPCO reports atmospheric readings from inside nuclear reactor plant No. 2. as high as 530 sieverts per hour. This is the highest since the 2011 meltdown.

    February 13, 2021 – A 7.1 magnitude earthquake off the east coast of Japan is an aftershock of the 2011 quake, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

    April 13, 2021 – The Japanese government announces it will start releasing more than 1 million metric tons of treated radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean in two years – a plan that faces opposition at home and has raised “grave concern” in neighboring countries. The whole process is expected to take decades to complete.

    September 9, 2021 – The IAEA and Japan agree on a timeline for the multi-year review of Japan’s plan to release treated radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean.

    February 18, 2022 – An IAEA task force makes its first visit to Japan for the safety review of its plan to discharge treated radioactive water into the sea.

    July 4, 2023 – An IAEA safety review concludes that Japan’s plans to release treated radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean are consistent with IAEA Safety Standards.

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  • An earthquake with a preliminary 5.6 magnitude shakes Indonesia’s capital

    An earthquake with a preliminary 5.6 magnitude shakes Indonesia’s capital

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    JAKARTA, Indonesia — A moderately strong earthquake late Sunday shook parts of Indonesia’s main island of Java and the country’s capital. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

    The U.S. Geological Survey said that the shallow quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.6 and that it occurred 37.2 kilometers (23.11 miles) below the surface. The epicenter was 80 kilometers (29 miles) west-southwest of Pelabuhanratu, a coastal town in West Java province.

    Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency measured its preliminary magnitude at 5.7, and at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). Variations in early measurements of quakes are common.

    The quake was strongly felt in several cities and villages and caused some to panic, said Daryono, who heads the Earthquake and Tsunami Center at the agency.

    Daryono, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, said there was no danger of a tsunami, but warned of possible aftershocks.

    High-rises in Jakarta, the capital, swayed for several seconds, even two-story homes shook strongly in West Java provincial capital Bandung, and in Jakarta’s satellite cities of Bogor and Bekasi.

    Earthquakes occur frequently across the sprawling archipelago nation, but it’s uncommon for them to be felt in Jakarta.

    Indonesia, a seismically active archipelago of 270 million people, is prone to seismic upheaval because of its location on major geological faults known as the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”

    A magnitude 5.6 earthquake last year killed at least 602 people in West Java’s Cianjur city. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi killed more than 4,300 people.

    In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia’s Aceh province.

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  • Japan's nuclear safety agency orders power plant operator to study the impact of Jan. 1 quake

    Japan's nuclear safety agency orders power plant operator to study the impact of Jan. 1 quake

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    TOKYO — Japan’s nuclear safety regulators have told the operator of a nuclear power plant in the area hit by a powerful New Year’s Day quake to study its potential impact.

    The Nuclear Regulation Authority, or NRA, asked for further investigation even though initial assessments showed the Shika nuclear power plant’s cooling systems and ability to contain radiation remained intact.

    The order reflects Japan‘s greater vigilance about safety risks after meltdowns in 2011 at a plant in Fukushima, on the northeastern Pacific coast, following a magnitude 9 quake and a massive tsunami.

    The Jan. 1 magnitude 7.6 quake and dozens of strong aftershocks have left 206 people dead and dozens more unaccounted for. It also caused small tsunami. But Hokuriku Electric Power Co., the plant’s operator, reported it had successfully dealt with damage to transformers, temporary outages and sloshing of spent fuel cooling pools that followed the quakes.

    Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi emphasized that the plant was safe. Eighteen of 116 radiation monitoring posts installed in Ishikawa prefecture, where Shika is located, and in neighboring Toyama briefly failed after the quake. All but two have since been repaired and none showed any abnormality, he said.

    Shika is a town on the western coast of the Noto peninsula, where the quake did the most damage, leaving roads gaping, toppling and collapsing buildings and triggering landslides.

    Hokuriku Electric Power Co., reported that water had spilled from the spent fuel pools in both reactors. Transformers in both reactors were damaged and leaked oil, causing a temporary loss of power in one of the cooling pools. Company officials reported no further safety problems at the Nuclear Regulatory Administration’s weekly meeting Wednesday.

    But NRA officials said the utility should consider a possibility of fresh damage to transformers and other key equipment as aftershocks continue.

    NRA chairperson Shinsuke Yamanaka urged the utility to thoroughly investigate the cause of the transformer damage and promptly report its findings. They also were instructed to study if earthquake responses at the plant should be a reevaluated.

    The Shika reactors were inaugurated in 1993 and 2006. They have been offline since the 2011 disaster. Hokuriku Electric applied to restart the newer No. 2 reactor in 2014, but safety checks by the nuclear safety agency were delayed due to the need to determine if there were active faults near the plant. The nuclear officials concluded active faults in the area were not underneath the reactors.

    Hokuriku still hopes to restart the No. 2 reactor by 2026.

    Both the government and business leaders generally support restarting the many reactors that were idled for safety checks and upgrades after the Fukushima disaster.

    The head of Japan’s powerful business organization Keidanren, Masakazu Tokura, visited the Shika plant last year. But on Tuesday he urged the utility to be fully transparent and ensure it was safe.

    “Many people are concerned, and I hope (the utility) provides adequate information at an appropriate time,” Tokura said.

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  • Scenes of loss play out across Japan's western coastline after quake kills 92, dozens still missing

    Scenes of loss play out across Japan's western coastline after quake kills 92, dozens still missing

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    SUZU, Japan — His face hidden under a humble straw hat, the man silently watched as several helmeted rescue workers carefully lifted from the rubble his wife’s body, wrapped in blue plastic on a stretcher.

    He wiped his weary face with a rag. His eyes were red.

    This scene in the city of Suzu was tragically repeated across Ishikawa Prefecture and nearby regions on the western coastline of Japan after Monday’s 7.6 magnitude temblor that decimated houses, twisted and scarred roads and scattered boats like toys in the waters, and prompted tsunami warnings.

    The death toll stood at 92 as of early Friday.

    Ishikawa officials said 55 of those who died were in the city of Wajima and 23 were in Suzu. The 13 others were reported in five neighboring towns. More than 460 people have been injured, at least 26 seriously.

    Officials said 242 people still missing, releasing a list of names that has grown by the day. Many of them are elderly and from the hard-hit cities of Wajima and Suzu.

    What exacerbated matters was people visiting to ring in the new year with their loved ones when the quake hit.

    Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reinforced rescue operations with about 3,600 soldiers in addition to the initial 1,000. Their mission is to provide those affected with fresh water and hot meals, as well as set up bathing facilities for the 34,000 who lost their homes and are now staying at evacuation facilities.

    Although Japan is reputed for relatively reliable disaster relief, essential supplies such as water, food and blankets have been running short.

    “All we got was a couple of rice balls,” said elderly Yasuo Kobatake cupping his hand in a tiny ball to show how small the meal was. He has been staying with his wife at an elementary school, an impromptu evacuation center. He was only given a tiny paper cup, half-filled with water that “vanished in a sip.”

    When the earth trembled, Kobatake was about to wear his shoes to head out. He ran out of the house wearing just one sock. That first tremblor was followed by the main more destructive quake which flung him to the ground. A concrete wall came crashing down, barely missing him.

    Kobatake can no longer access his destroyed house.

    “So here I am with my wife sleeping beside all the others (taking shelter at the school). We talk to each other and we try to encourage each other,” he said.

    Kobatake hoped help was on the way.

    However, many roads have been blocked by landslides or suffered cracks because of the strong quake, making it difficult for trucks delivering water and food supplies to reach those in need. The hardest hit spots were on the Noto Peninsula, the center of the quake, connected by a narrow land strip to the rest of the main island of Honshu, making alternative routes scarce.

    Snow is expected over the weekend, so finding those trapped under the rubble has become even more critical.

    Three days after Monday’s quake, rescuers are still pulling out people alive from under debris. But time is running out. Experts categorize the first 72 hours as crucial to finding survivors.

    Authorities warned more quakes and tsunamis could follow, stressing extra caution over the coming few days. Plans are also underway to fly some evacuated people out to safer areas.

    Aftershocks continued to rock the coastal areas, near the epicenter in Noto, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) from Tokyo on the opposite coast, hit Monday.

    The quake set off tsunami warnings, followed by waves measuring more than 1 meter (3 feet) in some places. The warnings have since been lifted.

    The usual pastoral landscape of Ishikawa was replaced by gray stretches of ash and charred walls, where a fire broke out in Wajima city.

    Cars were perched crooked on roads scarred with deep giant cracks. Lopsided houses missing rooftop tiles sat sadly beside a home the quake flattened to the ground, reducing it to a pile of wood. Boats floated belly-up in the bay.

    The first day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, usually a celebratory affair with the ringing of a big bell and throngs of kimono-clad women, was marked with a moment of silence, as people bowed their heads, to mourn the dead.

    “I would like to express my heartfelt prayers for the souls of those who lost their lives, and my deepest sympathies to all those suffering from the disaster,” said Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki.

    Japan is prone to earthquakes, with many fault lines and volcanoes. A massive quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011 caused widespread damage in northeastern Japan.

    So far, no major issues have been reported at nuclear plants following this week’s earthquake and aftershocks.

    ___

    Kageyama reported from Tokyo. Haruka Nuga in Bangkok contributed.

    ___

    Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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  • Scenes of loss play out across Japan's western coastline after quake kills 78, dozens still missing

    Scenes of loss play out across Japan's western coastline after quake kills 78, dozens still missing

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    SUZU, Japan — His face hidden under a humble straw hat, the man stood silent, watching several helmeted rescue workers carefully lift his wife’s body from the rubble, wrapped in blue plastic on a stretcher.

    He wiped his weary face with a rag. His eyes were red.

    This scene in the city of Suzu was tragically repeated across Ishikawa Prefecture and nearby regions on the western coastline of Japan after Monday’s 7.6 magnitude temblor that decimated houses, twisted and scarred roads and scattered boats like toys in the waters, and prompted tsunami warnings.

    The death toll stood at 78 people as of Thursday.

    Ishikawa officials said 44 of those who died were in the city of Wajima and 23 were in Suzu. The 11 others were reported in five neighboring towns. More than 330 people have been injured, at least 25 seriously.

    Those reported missing ballooned from 15 to 80 overnight, including a 13-year-old boy.

    What exacerbated matters was people visiting to ring in the new year with their loved ones when the quake hit.

    Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reinforced rescue operations with about 3,600 soldiers in addition to the initial 1,000. Their mission is to provide those affected with fresh water and hot meals, as well as set up bathing facilities for the 34,000 who lost their homes and are now staying at evacuation facilities.

    Although Japan is reputed for relatively reliable disaster relief, essential supplies such as water, food and blankets have been running short.

    “All we got was a couple of rice balls,” said elderly Yasuo Kobatake cupping his hand in a tiny ball to show how small the meal was. He has been staying with his wife at an elementary school, an impromptu evacuation center. He was only given a tiny paper cup, half-filled with water that “vanished in a sip.”

    When the earth trembled, Kobatake was about to wear his shoes to head out. He ran out of the house barefoot with just one sock on. That first tremblor was followed by the main more destructive quake which flung him to the ground. A concrete wall came crashing down, barely missing him.

    Kobatake can no longer access his destroyed house.

    “So here I am with my wife sleeping beside all the others (taking shelter at the school). We talk to each other and we try to encourage each other,” he said.

    Kobatake hoped help was on the way.

    However, many roads have been blocked by landslides or suffered cracks because of the strong quake, making it difficult for trucks delivering water and food supplies to reach those in need. The hardest hit spots were on the Noto Peninsula, the center of the quake, connected by a narrow land strip to the rest of the main island of Honshu, making alternative routes scarce.

    Snow is expected over the weekend, so finding those trapped under the rubble has become even more critical.

    Three days after Monday’s quake, rescuers are still pulling out people alive from under debris. But time is running out. Experts categorize the first 72 hours as crucial to finding survivors.

    Authorities warned more quakes and tsunamis could follow, stressing extra caution over the coming few days. Plans are also underway to fly some evacuated people out to safer areas.

    Aftershocks continued to rock the coastal areas, near the epicenter in Noto, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) from Tokyo on the opposite coast, hit Monday.

    The quake set off tsunami warnings, followed by waves measuring more than 1 meter (3 feet) in some places. The warnings have since been lifted.

    The usual pastoral landscape of Ishikawa was replaced by gray stretches of ash and charred walls, where a fire broke out in Wajima city.

    Cars were perched crooked on roads scarred with deep giant cracks. Lopsided houses missing rooftop tiles sat sadly beside a home the quake flattened to the ground, reducing it to a pile of wood. Boats floated belly-up in the bay.

    The first day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, usually a celebratory affair with the ringing of a big bell and throngs of kimono-clad women, was marked with a moment of silence, as people bowed their heads, to mourn the dead.

    “I would like to express my heartfelt prayers for the souls of those who lost their lives, and my deepest sympathies to all those suffering from the disaster,” said Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki.

    Japan is prone to earthquakes, with many fault lines and volcanoes. A massive quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011 caused widespread damage in northeastern Japan.

    So far, no major problems have been reported at nuclear plants following this week’s earthquake and aftershocks.

    ___

    Kageyama reported from Tokyo. Haruka Nuga in Bangkok contributed.

    ___

    Yuri Kageyama is on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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  • Japan quake toll hits 30 as rescuers race to find survivors

    Japan quake toll hits 30 as rescuers race to find survivors

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    Firefighters extinguish a fire in Nanao, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan, early on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024.

    Soichiro Koriyama | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    At least 30 people were killed after a powerful earthquake hit Japan on New Year’s Day, with rescue teams on Tuesday struggling to reach isolated areas where buildings had been toppled, roads wrecked and power cut to tens of thousands of homes.

    The quake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 struck in the middle of the afternoon on Monday, prompting residents in some coastal areas to flee to higher ground as tsunami waves hit Japan’s west coast, sweeping some cars and houses into the sea.

    Thousands of army personnel, firefighters and police officers from across the country have been dispatched to the worst-hit area in the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture.

    However, rescue efforts have been hindered by badly damaged and blocked roads and authorities say they are finding it difficult to assess the full extent of the fallout.

    Many rail services, ferries and flights into the area have been suspended. Noto airport has closed due to damage to its runway, terminal and access roads, with 500 people stranded inside cars in its parking lot, according to public broadcaster NHK.

    “The search and rescue of those impacted by the quake is a battle against time,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said during an emergency disaster meeting on Tuesday.

    Kishida said rescuers were finding it very difficult to reach the northern tip of the Noto peninsula due to wrecked roads, and that helicopter surveys had discovered many fires and widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure.

    Authorities in Ishikawa said they had confirmed 30 deaths from the earthquake so far, with half of those fatalities in hard-hit Wajima city near the quake’s epicentre.

    Firefighters have been battling blazes in several cities and trying to free more people trapped in collapsed buildings, Japan’s fire and disaster management agency said.

    More than 140 tremors have been detected since the quake first hit on Monday, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The agency has warned more strong shocks could hit in the coming days.

    Wrecked homes

    Nobuko Sugimori, a 74-year-old resident of Nanao city in Ishikawa, told Reuters she had never experienced such a quake before.

    “I tried to hold the TV set to keep it from toppling over, but I could not even keep myself from swaying violently from side to side,” Sugimori said from her home which had a large crack down its front wall and furniture scattered around the inside.

    Across the street, a car was crushed under a collapsed building where residents had another close call.

    Fujiko Ueno, 73, said nearly 20 people were in her house for a New Year celebration when the quake struck but miraculously all emerged uninjured.

    “It all happened in the blink of an eye” she said, standing in the street among debris from the wreckage and mud that oozed out of the road’s cracked surface.

    Several world leaders sent condolence messages with President Joe Biden saying in statement the United States was ready to provide any necessary help to Japan.

    “Our thoughts are with the Japanese people during this difficult time,” he said.

    The Japanese government ordered around 100,000 people to evacuate their homes on Monday night, sending them to sports halls and school gymnasiums, commonly used as evacuation centres in emergencies.

    Many returned to their homes on Tuesday as authorities lifted tsunami warnings.

    But around 33,000 households remained without power in Ishikawa prefecture early on Tuesday morning after a night where temperatures dropped below freezing, according to Hokuriku Electric Power’s 9505.T website. Most areas in the northern Noto peninsula also have no water supply, NHK reported.

    The Imperial Household Agency said it would cancel Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako’s slated New Year appearance on Tuesday following the disaster. Kishida postponed his New Year visit to Ise Shrine scheduled for Thursday.

    Japan’s defence minister told reporters on Tuesday that 1,000 army personnel are currently involved in rescue efforts and that 10,000 could eventually be deployed.

    Nuclear plants

    The quake comes at a sensitive time for Japan’s nuclear industry, which has faced fierce opposition from some locals since the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that triggered nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima. Whole towns were devastated in that disaster.

    Japan last week lifted an operational ban imposed on the world’s biggest nuclear plant, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, which has been offline since the 2011 tsunami.

    The Nuclear Regulation Authority said no irregularities were found at nuclear plants along the Sea of Japan, including five active reactors at Kansai Electric Power’s Ohi and Takahama plants in Fukui Prefecture.

    Hokuriku Electric’s Shika plant, the closest to the epicentre, has also been idled since 2011. The company said there had been some power outages and oil leaks following Monday’s jolt but no radiation leakage.

    The company had previously said it hoped to restart the reactor in 2026.

    Chip equipment maker Kokusai Electric said it is investigating further after finding some damage at its factory in Toyama ahead of the planned resumption of operations on Thursday.

    Companies including Sharp, Komatsu and Toshiba have been checking whether their factories in the area have been damaged. damage at its factory in Toyama ahead of the planned resumption of operations on Thursday.

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  • Japan issues tsunami warnings after dozens of quakes, including a 7.6 magnitude, off western coast

    Japan issues tsunami warnings after dozens of quakes, including a 7.6 magnitude, off western coast

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    TOKYO (AP) — Japan issued tsunami alerts and ordered evacuations following a series of earthquakes on Monday that started a fire and trapped people under rubble on the west coast of its main island.

    The Japan Meterological Agency reported quakes off the coast of Ishikawa and nearby prefectures shortly after 4 p.m., one of them with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6.

    The agency issued a major tsunami warning for Ishikawa and lower-level tsunami warnings or advisories for the rest of the western coast of the island of Honshu, as well as the northernmost of its main islands, Hokkaido.

    Japanese public broadcaster NHK TV warned torrents of water could reach as high as 5 meters (16.5 feet) and urged people to flee to high land or a top of a nearby building as quickly as possible.

    NHK said the tsunami waves could keep returning, and warnings were continuing to be aired nearly an hour after the initial alert. Several aftershocks also rocked the region.

    Government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that nuclear plants in the area had not reported any irregularities. But he said it was critical for people in coastal areas to get away from the oncoming tsunami.

    “Every minute counts. Please evacuate to a safe area immediately,” he said.

    A tsunami of about 3 meters (about 10 feet) high was expected to hit Niigata and other prefectures on the western coast of Japan, and the waves were confirmed to have reached parts of the coastline.

    At least six homes were damaged by the quakes, with people trapped inside. A fire has broken out in Wajima city, Ishikawa Prefecture, and electricity is out for more than 30,000 households, Hayashi said.

    He said no reports of deaths or injuries had been confirmed, saying the situation was still unclear. Japan’s military was taking part in the rescue efforts, he said.

    Japanese media footage showed people running through the streets, and red smoke spewing from a fire in a residential neighborhood. Photos showed a crowd of people, including a woman with a baby on her back, standing by huge cracks that had ripped through the pavement.

    Bullet trains in the area were halted. Parts of the highway were also closed, and water pipes had burst, according to NHK. Some cell phone services in the region weren’t working.

    The Meteorological Agency said in a nationally broadcast news conference that more major quakes could hit the area over the next week, especially in the next two or three days.

    More than a dozen strong quakes had been detected in the region, with risks of setting off landslides and houses collapsing, according to the agency.

    Takashi Wakabayashi, a worker at a convenience store in Ishikawa Prefecture, said some items had tumbled from the shelves, but the biggest problem was the huge crowd of people who had shown up to stock up on bottled water, rice balls and bread.

    “We have customers at three times the level of usual,” he said.

    Tsunami warnings were also issued for parts of North Korea and Russia. Russian officials issued a tsunami alert for the island of Sakhalin, warning that areas across the island’s west coast could be affected by the waves.

    In nearby South Korea, the weather agency urged residents in some eastern coastal towns to watch for possible changes in sea levels. Tsunami waves that hit later later can be bigger than the initial ones.

    The Japanese government has set up a special emergency center to gather information on the quakes and tsunami and relay them speedily to residents to ensure safety, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters.

    He reiterated the warning for immediate evacuation in affected areas.

    Japan is an extremely quake-prone nation. In March 2011, a major quake and tsunami caused meltdowns at a nuclear plant. Government spokesman Hayashi told reporters that nuclear plants in the affected area had not reported any irregularities on Monday.

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  • 5.9 magnitude earthquake shakes Indonesia's Aceh province. No casualties reported

    5.9 magnitude earthquake shakes Indonesia's Aceh province. No casualties reported

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    BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A strong and shallow undersea earthquake shook part of Indonesia’s Aceh province Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of serious damage or casualties.

    The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 5.9 earthquake was centered 362 kilometers (225 miles) east of Sinabang, a coastal town in Aceh province at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles).

    Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysical Agency said there was no danger of a tsunami but warned of possible aftershocks. The agency put a preliminary magnitude at 6.3. Variations in early measurements of quakes are common.

    Indonesia, a vast archipelago of more than 270 million people, is frequently hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions because of its location on the “Ring of Fire,” an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin.

    A magnitude 5.6 earthquake on Nov. 21 killed at least 331 people and injured nearly 600 in West Java’s Cianjur city. It was the deadliest in Indonesia since a 2018 quake and tsunami in Sulawesi killed about 4,340 people.

    In 2004, an extremely powerful Indian Ocean quake set off a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in a dozen countries, most of them in Indonesia’s Aceh province.

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  • TEPCO's operational ban is lifted, putting it one step closer to restarting reactors in Niigata

    TEPCO's operational ban is lifted, putting it one step closer to restarting reactors in Niigata

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    TOKYO — Japanese nuclear safety regulators lifted an operational ban Wednesday imposed on a nuclear plant owned by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, the operator behind the Fukushima plant that ended in disaster, allowing the company to resume preparations for restarting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant after more than 10 years.

    At its weekly meeting, the Nuclear Regulation Authority formally lifted the more than two-year ban imposed on the TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant over its lax safety measures at the site, saying a series of inspections and meetings with company officials has shown sufficient improvement. The decision removes an order that prohibited TEPCO from transporting new fuel into the plant or placing it into reactors, a necessary step for restarting Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s reactors.

    The plant on Japan‘s northern coast of Niigata is TEPCO’s only workable nuclear power plant since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami destroyed its Fukushima Daiichi plant and caused Fukushima Daini plant to cease operations. For the company now burdened with the growing cost of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi plant and compensating disaster-hit residents, restarting the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactors soon is key to stabilizing its business.

    TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa told reporters Wednesday that it was too early to comment on the prospect for the restart. He said the company will provide its safety and security measures to gain understanding from the local residents, who must approve a restart.

    The NRA slapped an unprecedented ban on the operator in April 2021 after revelations of a series of sloppy anti-terrorism measures at TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the world’s largest nuclear power complex housing seven reactors.

    The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was partially damaged in a 2007 earthquake, causing safety concerns and distrust among local municipalities. The March 2011 disaster caused stoppages of all 54 reactors Japan used to have before the Fukushima disaster, and prompted utility operators to shut many of them down due to additional safety costs, bringing the number of usable reactors to 33 today. Twelve reactors have been restarted under tougher safety standards, and the government wants to bring more than 20 others back online — a goal widely considered overly ambitious.

    TEPCO was making final preparations to restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s No. 6 and No. 7 reactors after regulators granted safety approvals for them in 2017. But in 2021, regulators gave the plant’s nuclear security a “red” rating, the lowest given to any operator, resulting in the operational ban.

    The case raised questions about whether TEPCO learned any lessons from the 2011 Fukushima crisis, which was largely attributed to the utility’s lack of concern about safety.

    NRA Chair Shinsuke Yamanaka told Wednesday’s meeting that the lifting of the restrictions is just the beginning, and TEPCO is still required to keep improving its safety precautions.

    “TEPCO is a unique company; in a way it had caused the accident,” Yamanaka said. “It is the operator’s responsibility to keep improving, and our task is to watch if improvement is adequately carried out.” He said he hoped TEPCO will be an open and transparent company capable of sufficient communication across the workplace, while also accomplishing Fukushima Daiichi’s cleanup.

    Before TEPCO can restart the reactors, it needs the consent of nearby residents. Prior to the NRA decision Wednesday, Niigata Gov. Hideyo Hanazumi told reporters that the will of the voters he represents must be taken into consideration.

    The Japanese government recently began a push to restart as many reactors as possible to maximize nuclear energy and meet decarbonization targets. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government has reversed Japan’s nuclear energy phaseout plan, instead looking to use atomic power as key energy supply accounting to more than one-fifth of the country’s energy supply.

    A restart of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, along with attempts by other utility operators to resume their reactors, would “contribute to Japan’s stable energy supply and its pursuit of carbon neutrality,” especially when the energy-scarce country is hit by rising energy costs amid Russia’s war on Ukraine, Kobayakawa said. “Of course, safety is the prerequisite.”

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  • TEPCO's operational ban is lifted, putting it one step closer to restarting reactors in Niigata

    TEPCO's operational ban is lifted, putting it one step closer to restarting reactors in Niigata

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    TOKYO — Japanese nuclear safety regulators lifted an operational ban Wednesday imposed on Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, the operator behind the Fukushima plant that ended in disaster, allowing the company to resume preparations for restarting a separate plant after more than 10 years.

    At its weekly meeting, the Nuclear Regulation Authority formally lifted the more than two-year ban imposed on the TEPCO over its lax safety measures, saying a series of inspections and meetings with company officials has shown sufficient improvement. The decision removes an order that prohibited TEPCO from transporting new fuel into the plant or placing it into reactors, a necessary step for restarting Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s reactors.

    The plant on Japan‘s northern coast of Niigata is TEPCO’s only workable nuclear power plant since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami put its Fukushima Daiichi plant out of operation. Now the company is burdened with the growing cost of decommissioning the Fukushima plant and compensating disaster-hit residents.

    The NRA slapped an unprecedented ban on the operator in April 2021 after revelations of a series of sloppy anti-terrorism measures at TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, the world’s largest nuclear power complex housing seven reactors.

    The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was partially damaged in a 2007 earthquake, causing distrust among local municipalities. The March 2011 disaster caused stoppages of all 54 reactors Japan used to have before the Fukushima disaster, and prompted utility operators to decommission many of them due to additional safety costs, bringing the number of usable reactors to 33 today. Twelve reactors have been restarted under tougher safety standards, and the government wants to bring more than 20 others back online.

    TEPCO was making final preparations to restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s No. 6 and No. 7 reactors after regulators granted safety approvals for them in 2017. But in 2018, regulators gave the plant’s nuclear security a “red” rating, the lowest given to any operator, resulting in the operational ban.

    The case raised questions about whether TEPCO learned any lessons from the 2011 Fukushima crisis, which was largely attributed to the utility’s lack of concern about safety.

    NRA Chair Shinsuke Yamanaka told Wednesday’s meeting that the lifting of the restrictions is just the beginning, and TEPCO is still required to keep improving its safety precautions.

    Before TEPCO can restart the reactors, it needs the consent of nearby residents. Prior to the NRA decision Wednesday, Niigata Gov. Hideyo Hanazumi told reporters that the will of the voters he represents must be taken into consideration.

    The Japanese government recently began a push to restart as many reactors as possible to maximize nuclear energy and meet decarbonization targets. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government has reversed Japan’s nuclear energy phaseout plan, instead looking to use atomic power as key energy supply accounting to more than one-fifth of the country’s energy supply.

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