Japan expands nuclear evacuation zone, new quake hits, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* High radiation forces extention of evacuations

* 7.1 magnitude quake triggers tsunami alert

* Voter anger at nuclear crisis hits PM Kan's party

* No end in sight to month-long nuclear crisis (Updates with strong quake and tsunami alert, evacuation details)

By Yoko Kubota and Yoko Nishikawa

TOKYO, April 11 (Reuters) - Japan on Monday expanded the evacuation zone around its crippled nuclear plant because of high levels of accumulated radiation, as a strong aftershock rattled the area one month after a quake and tsunami sparked the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

A magnitude 7.1 tremor shook buildings in Tokyo and a wide swathe of eastern Japan on Monday evening, triggering a small tsunami alert. NHK state television said it caused the off-site power supply for two damaged reactors to shut down.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the aftershock struck 38 km (24 miles) west of the city of Iwaki, at a depth of 13 km (8 miles).

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) , which operates the plant, said workers had stopped pouring cooling water on reactors No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 at Fukushima.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said villages and towns outside the 20 km (12 mile) evacuation zone that have had more accumulated radiation would be evacuated. Children, pregnant women, and hospitalised patients should stay out of some areas 20-30 km from the Fukushima nuclear complex, he added.

The decision to widen the evacuation band around the Fukushima plant was "based on data analysis of accumulated radiation exposure information", Edano told a news conference.

"These new evacuation plans are meant to ensure safety against risks of living there for half a year or one year," he said. There was no need to evacuate immediately, he added.

Japan had resisted extending the zone despite international concerns over radiation spreading from the six damaged reactors at Fukushima, which engineers are still struggling to bring under control after they were wrecked by the 15-metre tsunami.

Residents of one village, Iitate, which is 40 km from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, have been told to prepare for evacuation because of prolonged exposure to radiation, a local official told Reuters by phone. It has a population of 5,000.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has urged Japan to extend the zone and some countries, including the United States, have advised their citizens to stay 80 km away from the plant.

TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu visited the area on Monday for the first time the March 11 disaster. He had all but vanished from public view apart from a brief apology shortly after the crisis began and has spent some of the time since in hospital.

"I would like to deeply apologise again for causing physical and psychological hardships to people of Fukushima prefecture and near the nuclear plant," said a grim-faced Shimizu.

Dressed in a blue work jacket, he bowed his head for a moment of silence with other TEPCO officials at 2:46 p.m. (0546 GMT), exactly a month after the earthquake hit.

Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato refused to meet Shimizu during his visit, but the TEPCO boss left a business card at the government office.

Sato has criticised the evacuation policy, saying residents in a 20-30 km radius were initially told to stay indoors and then advised to evacuate voluntarily.

RADIOACTIVE WATER

Engineers at the damaged Daiichi plant north of Tokyo said they were no closer to restoring the plant's cooling system which is critical if overheated fuel rods are to be cooled and the six reactors brought under control.

In a desperate move to cool highly radioactive fuel rods, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) <9501.t> has pumped water onto reactors, some of which have experienced partial meltdown.

But the strategy has hindered moves to restore the plant's internal cooling system, critical to end the crisis, as engineers have had to focus how to store 60,000 tonnes of contaminated water.

Engineers have been forced to pump low-level radioactive water, left by the tsunami, back into the sea in order to free up storage capacity for highly contaminated water from reactors.

China and South Korea have both criticised Japan for pumping radioactive water into the sea, with Seoul calling it incompetent, reflecting growing international unease over the month-long atomic disaster and the spread of radiation.

TEPCO hopes to stop pumping radioactive water into the ocean on Monday, days later than planned.

Engineers are also pumping nitrogen into reactors to counter a build-up of hydrogen and prevent another explosion sending more radiation into the air, but they say the risk of such a dramatic event has lowered significantly since March 11.

POLITICAL FALLOUT

The triple disaster is the worst to hit Japan since World War Two after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a huge tsunami battered its northeast coast, leaving nearly 28,000 dead or missing and rocking the world's third-largest economy.

Concern at Japan's inability contain its nuclear crisis is mounting with Prime Minister Kan's ruling party suffering embarrassing losses in local elections on Sunday.

Voters vented their anger at the government's handling of the nuclear and humanitarian crisis, with Kan's ruling Democratic Party of Japan losing nearly 70 seats in local elections. [ID:nL3E7FA09V]

The unpopular Kan was already under pressure to step down before March 11, but analysts say he is unlikely to be forced out during the crisis, set to drag on for months.

"The great disaster was a double tragedy for Japan. The first tragedy was the catastrophe caused by the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear accident. The other misfortune was that the disaster resulted in prolonging Prime Minister Kan's time in office," Sankei newspaper said in an editorial on Monday. ($1=85.475 Japanese yen) (Additional reporting by Issei Kato, Shinichi Saoshiro, Chisa Fujioka, Elaine Lies, Masahiro Koike and Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Alex Richardson)

Close to 30,000 dead or missing in Japana and disaster still brewing, Posted by Meosha Eaton

According to the latest reports, there are over 28,000 deaths and missing persons in lieu of the recent March 11 earthquake and tusanami. It appears that the situation continues to get worse for Japan with the recent nuclear and radiation crisis.  What is next? It's hard to say with the radiation leak still not under control.

Hundreds of engineers have been toiling for nearly three weeks to cool the plant's reactors and avert a meltdown of fuel rods. While that scenario has receded, highly tainted water has been found in some reactors and in concrete tunnels outside.

Readings have also showed radioactive iodine in the sea off the plant at record levels and radiation has been in tap water in Tokyo and in tiny traces abroad.

Experts say a lack of information and some inconsistent data have made it hard to understand what is happening at Fukushima, which appears to have moved from a core-meltdown phase to one in which the management of released radioactivity is paramount.

The situation has taken a new turn with contaminated water, causing officials to call on France nuclear experts for assistance.

The head of the French nuclear reactor maker -- one of France's most powerful female executives -- travelled to Tokyo with three French experts in radioactive water contamination.

The French experts will be based in the Tokyo area and not at the acual nuclear site.
Their participation could help facilitate the developments on the disaster.

Oil up $2 to over $112 on Middle East unrest, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* Bahrain Petroleum partly shuts down production

* Japan battles to avert nuclear meltdown

* Coming Up: U.S. Feb inflation, weekly jobless claims


(Updates prices, quotes, BAPCO shutdown)

By Claire Milhench

LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) - Oil rose by more than $2 on Thursday as tensions in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain fuelled fears of further supply disruption while investors weighed the impact on energy demand from quake-hit Japan.

Brent crude for May, the front-month contract after April expired on Wednesday, was up $2.13 to $112.73 a barrel at 1120 GMT. Overnight it fell as much as 1 percent to $109.45 but then rebounded Thursday morning to an intraday high of $113.12.

U.S. crude rallied more than $1, reaching an intraday high of $99.86 before slipping back to $99.71 a barrel.

"The market is seeing risks from the supply side and the demand side, and has to decide which is weighing more," said Barbara Lambrecht, a commodity analyst at Commerzbank. "It is looking for orientation -- I think we can expect more volatility."

Prices had slid about 4 percent since Japan's earthquake and tsunami six days ago, touching a three-week low of $107.35 on Wednesday. But increased tensions in the Middle East have helped prices rebound.

"The focus is back on continuing unrest in the Middle East and what will be a lot of disruption in Libya for a long time," said Christopher Bellew, an oil trader at Bache Commodities.

"The risk is more to the upside -- there was a lot of long liquidation on that sharp sell off at the beginning of the week so we will work our way a bit higher probably."

In Bahrain at least six opposition leaders have been arrested, a day after a crackdown on protests by the Shi'ite Muslim majority. A United Nations human rights official urged Bahrain to rein in its forces.

State-owned Bahrain Petroleum Co (BAPCO) has partly shutdown production due to staff shortages caused by the protests, trade sources said..

Bahrain lies less than 100 kms from the hub of the Saudi oil industry at Dhahran, including the world's largest oilfields, oil terminal and processing plant.

"The demonstrations in Bahrain are a potential threat to Saudi Arabia," said Thorbjorn Bak Jensen, oil market analyst at Global Risk Management.

Saudi Shi'ites marched in the kingdom's oil-producing east on Wednesday, demanding the release of prisoners and voicing support for Shi'ites in nearby Bahrain, an activist and witnesses said.


JAPAN, LIBYA DISRUPTIONS

The market is also focused on the quake-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan where emergency crews are battling to cool an overheating nuclear plant in efforts to avert a meltdown.

Although the Japanese reconstruction effort will be energy-intensive, manufacturing shutdowns such as that of Toshiba's LCD assembly line may reduce the immediate demand for electricity.

Any lengthy disruptions to regional production networks could spill over into global supply chains and impact economic growth, investors fear.

"With the Japanese crisis we are starting to enter an area of systemic risk where assets can see extreme fluctuations without necessarily a fundamental justification," Olivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix, said in a note.

Bak Jensen said risk aversion had prompted the big sell-off earlier in the week, but when Japan regains control of its nuclear reactors, oil prices should pick up again.

"Refined products such as fuel oil and gasoil are trading at premiums to Brent and that should put upward pressure on Brent," he said.

In Libya, government soldiers battled rebels on the road to the insurgent stronghold of Benghazi. The United Nations Security Council meets later on Thursday to consider its response to the escalating violence in Libya, with a vote planned on the no-fly zone.

OPEC members including Saudi Arabia have increased output partly to compensate for the loss of as much as two-thirds of Libyan supplies, at the same time eroding spare capacity.

Commerzbank's Lambrecht noted even if the Gaddafi regime quickly regains control of oilfields and exporting facilities, the sites are partly destroyed and market sanctions expected.

(Additional reporting by Alejandro Barbajosa in Singapore; editing by James Jukwey)

UN News: Earthquake and tsunami in Japan - Ban Ki-moon Media Stakeout , Posted by Menelik Zeleke

11 March 2011
Informal comments to the media by H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations on the earthquake and tsunami in Japan

MACTV News: SNAPSHOT-Developments after major Japan earthquake, Posted by Menelik Zeleke

March 14, 2011 1:45:43 PM

• JAPAN-QUAKE/SNAPSHOT

TOKYO, March 14 (Reuters) - Following are main developments after a massive earthquake struck northeast Japan on Friday and set off a tsunami.

- Death toll expected to exceed 10,000 from the quake and tsunami, public broadcaster NHK says. About 2,000 bodies found on two shores of Miyagi prefecture, Kyodo news agency reports.

- Japan battles to prevent nuclear catastrophe. A hydrogen explosion jolts the No. 3 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo. Operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) says 11 people were injured.

- Before the blast, officials said 22 people had suffered radiation contamination. Up to 190 may have been exposed.

- Operator TEPCO begins reinjecting water into No. 2 reactor in the hope of cooling it, and says water levels have risen and half the fuel rods are exposed.

- Nuclear safety agency rates the incident a 4 on the 1 to 7 International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, less serious than Three Mile Island, a 5, and Chernobyl at 7.

- Switzerland's energy minister says suspends approvals process for three nuclear power stations so safety standards can be revisited.

* Germany's ruling coalition is discussing suspending for three months its decision last year to extend the life of Germany's nuclear power plants, a coalition source says.

- Authorities have set up a 20-km (12-mile) exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and a 10-km (6 mile) zone around Fukushima Daini.

- Strong aftershocks persist in the stricken area.
- About 450,000 people evacuated nationwide in addition to 80,000 from the exclusion zone around the nuclear power plants. Almost 2 million households are without power in the freezing north and about 1.4 million households have no running water.

- Reactor operator says rolling blackout to affect 3 million customers, including large factories, buildings and households. Blackouts affected 113,000 households on Monday, it says.

- Japan's Nikkei share index falls more than 6 percent, dragging European stocks to their lowest in three months.

- The Bank of Japan (BoJ) offers to pump a record $85 billion into the banking system.
- Credit Suisse estimates the loss at between 14 trillion yen ($171 billion) and 15 trillion yen just to the quake region.
(Tokyo bureau; World Desk Asia, Singapore +65 6870 3815)

Food and water shortage at earthquake shelter in Sendai, Japan, Posted by Meosha Eaton

More than 3,000 residents in Sendai, Japan took shelter at a suburban high school of the city after the 9-magnitude earthquake devastated their homes. Due to the current shortage of food and water supply, only children and seniors at and above 75 years old are provided with food at the emergency shelter.

Each of the people taking shelter here has a ration of only two bottles of water every day. As the access to the disaster area is cut off, the shipment of good, especially food and drinking water, to Sendai is also blocked.

Food supply to the shelter dwellers has come to a halt as of today. Still people have to live here, as their own homes are no longer in existence or safe after the catastrophic earthquake. Given the constant aftershocks at present, the shelter is the best place they could find for the time being.

"I moved here yesterday," said a young woman. "How is your own home?" asked the reporter. "Its appearance looks ok, but inside it's all a mess," said the young woman.

"My home is gone completely, with the TV set and other things rocked down everywhere, and it's dangerous to go back there," said a woman.

"Have you got a food ration?" asked the reporter.
"No, only children and seniors at and above 75 years old are entitled to a food ration," answered the woman.

For any questions please call +86-10-63969499, or email newscontent@cctv.com. If you want to learn more, please go to the CCTV website at http://newscontent.cctv.com.

* Tsunami reaches more than 6 feet in California, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* Tsunami reaches more than 6 feet in California
* Thousands evacuate in California
* Hawaii residents told to move inland
* Ecuador takes extreme precautions

(Updates with Ecuador, Mexico tsunami preparations)

By Peter Henderson and Alexandra Valencia
OAKLAND, Calif./QUITO, March 11 (Reuters) - Thousands of people fled their homes along the California coast on Friday as a tsunami triggered by the massive earthquake in Japan began hitting the U.S. West Coast after rolling through Hawaii.

Initial reports from U.S. civil defense officials and residents of coastal communities suggested the force of the tsunami, a giant wall of water, had dissipated as it sped across the Pacific Ocean toward North America. The massive 8.9 magnitude quake in Japan triggered tsunami warnings for most of the Pacific basin. Advisories or warnings were in effect from Canada all the way down the Pacific coast of South America.

Tidal surges in the Hawaiian island chain were generally little higher than normal, officials said, and there were no reports of injuries or severe inland property damage.
An Obama administration official said Hawaii appeared to be out of danger, but some risk remained for the U.S. West Coast.

"I think the enormous fears that were there hours ago, for some of us hours ago, has diminished greatly, which is quite a relief for all of us," White House chief of staff Bill Daley said. "There's always the possibility that something may happen after, so people are watching it now," he added.

Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was more cautious. "The problem is you're never sure until the waves come in," he told CNN.
Tsunami waves crashing ashore in the northern Californian city of Crescent City were more than 6 feet (2 metres), the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

"They are starting to roll in," said Jordan Scott, spokesman for the California Emergency Management Agency. He cautioned it could take 10 to 12 hours for the effects of the quake to completely fade.

Thousands of residents were being evacuated along the California coast, including some 6,000 near the surfing town of Santa Cruz, civil defense officials said.
Scott said people were also being evacuated in Del Norte and San Mateo counties. Del Norte is the northernmost California coastal county and San Mateo includes much of Silicon Valley, although the technology center is well inland. Authorities in the neighboring state of Oregon closed schools along the coast and advised residents to evacuate.

SIRENS BLARE IN HAWAII
In Hawaii, 3,800 miles (6,200 km) from Japan, the main airports on at least three of the major islands -- Maui, Kauai and the Big Island of Hawaii -- were shut down as a precaution, and the U.S. Navy ordered all warships in Pearl Harbor to remain in port to support rescue missions as needed. Civil defense sirens blared statewide, starting shortly before 10 p.m. local time, and police with bullhorns urged residents near shore to higher ground.

John Cummings, a spokesman for emergency management in Honolulu, said no injuries or property damage had been reported after a series of four tsunami waves had hit the Hawaii's capital or the rest of the island of Oahu. President Barack Obama, a native of Hawaii, was notified of the massive Japanese quake at 4 a.m./0900 GMT and instructed FEMA to be prepared to help affected U.S. states and territories, the White House said.

CHILE RESIDENTS ALERT
Ecuador took extreme precautions after President Rafael Correa declared a state of emergency across the Andean nation on national television and urged residents to move inland.

The area at risk includes the Galapagos Islands -- a popular tourist destination known for its incredible wildlife, including endangered species, that inspired British naturalist Charles Darwin's evolution theory in the 19th century. State oil company Petroecuador halted product shipments.

On Easter Island, a Chilean territory in the South Pacific, authorities planned to move residents to higher ground, in preparation for a possible tsunami on Friday afternoon.
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, whose country was hit by a 8.8 magnitude quake and ensuing tsunamis that killed more than 500 people a year ago, told Chileans to remain alert. Peruvian officials said they were waiting until late afternoon to decide if they would order evacuations from low-lying coastal areas such as the port city of Callao.

Many ports along Mexico's western coast were closed, including Los Cabos and Salina Cruz in southern Oaxaca, the only oil-exporting terminal on the country's Pacific side.
State-run oil company Pemex's biggest refinery, Antonio Dovali Jaime, is about two miles (3 km) from the coast near Salina Cruz but a spokesman said operations were normal. Canada advised authorities in parts of British Columbia to evacuate marinas, beaches and other low-lying areas.

(Additional reporting by Suzanne Roig and Jorene Barut in Honolulu, Peter Henderson in San Francisco, Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Simon Gardner in Santiago; Anahi Rama, Cyntia Barrera Diaz, Mica Rosenberg and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico; writing by Frances Kerry and Ross Colvin; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

US still faces tsunami risk, White House says, Posted by Meosha Eaton

(Updates with full Daley comment)

WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. West Coast and Hawaii still face the possibility of risk from a quake-driven tsunami that passed Hawaii without major impact, White House chief of staff Bill Daley said on Friday.

"The tsunami wave has gone through Hawaii and there does not seem to be any enormous impact, which is extremely encouraging," Daley said at a meeting of the President's Export Council.

The tsunami originated off the coast of Japan from an earthquake that reached a magnitude of 8.9. "There's always the possibility that something may happen after, so people are watching it now," Daley said.

"There's some anticipation of what's going to happen on the West Coast. But I think the enormous fears that were there hours ago, for some of us hours ago, has diminished greatly, which is quite a relief for all of us," he said.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; editing by Will Dunham)

Oil slides after quake, tsunami slam Japan, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* U.S. crude below $100
* Earthquake Japan's largest in 140 years
* Some refineries, nuclear power plants, manufacturers shut

(Updates prices)
By Ikuko Kurahone

LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - Oil slid by on Friday, with U.S. crude falling below $100, after an earthquake rocked Japan, created a 10-metre tsunami and shut down dozens of plants in the world's third-largest oil consumer. The oil market was also keeping an eye on a planned day of demonstrations in Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, and violence in Libya, which has disrupted its oil exports.

U.S. crude fell to as low as $99.01 a barrel and was trading at $100.44 a by 1544 GMT. ICE Brent crude fell $1.40 to $114.07 a barrel. It has fallen from a 2-1/2-year high of $119.79 on Feb. 24. Metals and soft commodities also fell.

Japan was hit by a magnitude 8.9 earthquake, the largest since observations began in the late 19th century. About 200-300 bodies were found, said police in Miyagi, northern Japan, where the quakes and the tsunami hit the hardest. The death toll was expected to rise.

"We need to think what the potential impact on Japanese economy from the quake will be and what the impact on global economy will be," Olivier Jakob with Petromatrix said. "That may weigh on oil demand from Japan and the oil price." Japan is the third-largest energy consumer after China and the United States and imports almost all its energy needs.

Some refineries and nuclear power plants were shut, and analysts pointed out the shutdowns might increase demand for imports of refined products and fuels for electricity generators.

"Short-term the disruption in activity will be clearly negative for Japanese oil demand, but you may find that post the initial impact of the tsunami, there will be a need to deliver oil products to meet demand if you suffer losses in refinery output," said Harry Tchilinguirian, BNP Paribas' head of commodity markets strategy.

The earthquake triggered a 10-metre tsunami that swept away everything in its path, including houses, cars, ships and farm buildings, and then spread across the Pacific.
The Japanese government declared an emergency at nuclear power plants and evacuated thousands of residents. No radiation leak had been reported so far.
Jakob and Tchilinguirian also pointed out the potential for increased demand for natural gas and fuel oil from power producers to compensate for shutdowns of nuclear capacity.


MIDDLE EAST PROTESTS
In the Middle East, police flooded the streets of Saudi Arabia's capital to deter a planned day of demonstrations, while a small Shi'ite demonstrated was reported in Hofuf, in the oil-producing east.

In Libya, forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi entered the oil port of Ras Lanuf in the east of the country and were fighting for control of the town, rebels said on Friday. "Looking further forward it would be optimistic to expect Libyan oil production to return to normal levels this year," Lawrence Eagles with J.P. Morgan said in a research note.

Elsewhere in the region, Bahraini police blocked several thousand protestors from reaching the royal palace. In Yemen, tens of thousands of protestors marched in the capital, and protests turned violent in the southern port city of Aden. Kuwaiti riot police fired tear gas to break up a small, peaceful demonstration by stateless Arabs demanding greater rights.

European shares fell to a three-month low after the quake in Japan and on growing unrest in the Arab world. U.S. retail sales rose 1 percent, the largest gain since October. But it did not reverse the fall in oil prices.

(Reporting by Ikuko Kurahone, additional reporting by Alejandro Barbajosa in Singapore; editing by James Jukwey and Jane Baird)