The Jewish Community of Japan Aids Its Home in the Rebuilding Process (ContributorNetwork)

The earthquake and subsequent tsunami in northern Japan devastated the physical landscape, but as the aftermath unfolds, time has proven that it cannot kill the spirit of a proud people such as the Japanese. The Jewish Community of Japan (JCJ) has a history spanning over sixty years in Tokyo, and the members of that community, along with foreign partners, have already been doing their part to help rebuild the country they call home.

Within 24 hours of the quake, The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) contacted the JCJ to assist with relief efforts. The board members of the JCJ identified NGO-JEN (http://www.jen-npo.org/en/index.html) as a great way to channel supplies and workers to those who needed it most on the ground in northern Japan, so they set up a fund to funnel money from the JDC directly to NGO-JEN. To date, the JDC and the JCJ together have raised more than $60,000 for the cause. The immediate response of the JDC has been a gratifying experience for the community, and has helped NGO-JEN to work more efficiently to put the aid and supplies where they are needed most.

Some members of the Jewish community are setting up deliveries to go without having the auspices of an organization. One member was able to get a truck and supplies out to Miyagi Prefecture within a week of the disasters. He organized food, blankets, medical supplies and even shoes to the victims. Culturally, most Japanese people who are in their homes do not wear shoes, so when the earthquake and tsunami occurred, they fled in stocking feet. Beyond blankets and coats to combat cold weather, shoes are also good items for donation.

Another board member of the JCJ has been working with the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) as they have set up a field hospital in Minamisanriku to help those affected by the disaster who need on-site medical attention. This is a wonderful contribution from the State of Israel to the people of Japan. The JCJ member who has been in touch with the group helped with obtaining necessary items on the ground for the Israeli team, such as Kosher food and other Japanese supplies. If they stay through the Jewish holiday of Passover in mid-April, he will assist in getting them ready for the holiday as they deem necessary.

Things are getting back to normal in the community itself. The Rabbi of the JCJ, Rabbi Antonio DiGesu, plans to hold services as usual this Sabbath. The religious school, which boasts close to eighty children, will have classes this Sunday. Passover preparation continues in full force. On a normal year, the JCJ hosts upwards of 200 people for first and second night seders, celebrated at the start of Passover, and there is no reason for that to cease.

Most of the JCJ members are foreigners from across the US, Europe, Australia and other places. Most, if they left at all, are now returning to Tokyo - their adopted city. Time and time again the Japanese have proved their ability to recover from the wreckage of disaster, and this time will be no different. Throughout history, the Japanese have proven themselves a resilient group of people, as have the Jews. The Jewish Community of Japan is honored to assist this proud people and be part of their culture and society as they go through the rebuilding process.

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Japan says stricken nuclear power plant in cold shutdown (Reuters)

By Kiyoshi Takenaka and Shinichi Saoshiro Kiyoshi Takenaka And Shinichi Saoshiro – Fri Dec 16, 7:59 am ET

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan declared its tsunami-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant to be in cold shutdown on Friday, taking a major step to resolving the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years but some critics questioned whether the plant was really under control.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was wrecked on March 11 by a huge earthquake and a towering tsunami which knocked out its cooling systems, triggering meltdowns, radiation leaks and mass evacuations.

In making the much-anticipated announcement, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda tried to draw a line under the most acute phase of the crisis and highlighted the next challenges: the clean-up and the safe dismantling of the plant, something the government says may take more than 30 years.

"The reactors have reached a state of cold shutdown," Noda told a government nuclear emergency response meeting.

"A stable condition has been achieved," he added, noting radiation levels at the boundary of the plant could now be kept at low levels, even in the event of "unforeseeable incidents."

A cold shutdown is when water used to cool nuclear fuel rods remains below boiling point, preventing the fuel from reheating. One of the chief aims of the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), had been to bring the reactors to that state by the year-end.

The declaration of a cold shutdown could have repercussions well beyond the plant. It is a government pre-condition for allowing about 80,000 residents evacuated from within a 20 km (12 mile) radius of the plant to go home.

Both Noda and his environment and nuclear crisis minister Goshi Hosono said that while the government still faced huge challenges, the situation at the plant was under control.

That provoked an angry response from senior local officials, Greenpeace and some reporters even as the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear agency welcomed "significant progress" at the plant.

"We hope that this will be a fresh step towards going back home but it does not change the fact that the path to bringing the crisis under control is long and tough," Fukushima governor Yuhei Sato said, according to the Asahi newspaper website.

Greenpeace dismissed the announcement as a publicity stunt.

"By triumphantly declaring a cold shutdown, the Japanese authorities are clearly anxious to give the impression that the crisis has come to an end, which is clearly not the case," Greenpeace Japan said in a statement.

Hosono acknowledged that there were some areas where it would be difficult to bring people back and said there could be small difficulties here and there, but he told a briefing: "I believe there will be absolutely no situation in which problems escalate and nearby residents are forced to evacuate."

The water temperature in all three of the affected reactors fell below boiling point by September, but Tepco had said it would declare a state of cold shutdown only once it was satisfied that the temperatures and the amount of radiation emitted from the plant remained stable.

Jonathan Cobb, an expert at the British-based World Nuclear Association, said the authorities had been conservative in choosing the timing of the announcement.

"The government has delayed declaration of cold shutdown conditions, one reason being to ensure that the situation at the plant was stable," Cobb said, adding that the evacuation zone should get progressively smaller as more of it was decontaminated.

Kazuhiko Kudo, professor of nuclear engineering at Kyushu University, said authorities needed to determine exactly the status of melted fuel inside the reactors and stabilize a makeshift cooling system, which handles the tens of thousands of tons of contaminated water accumulated on-site.

HUGE COSTS, ANXIETY

The government and Tepco will aim to begin removing the undamaged nuclear rods from the plant's spent fuel pools next year. However, retrieval of fuel that melted down in their reactors may not begin for another decade.

The enormous cost of the cleanup and compensating the victims has drained Tepco financially. The government may inject about $13 billion into the company as early as next summer in a de facto nationalization, sources told Reuters last week.

An official advisory panel estimates Tepco may have to pay about 4.5 trillion yen ($57 billion) in compensation in the first two years after the nuclear crisis, and that it will cost 1.15 trillion yen to decommission the plant, though some experts put it at 4 trillion yen ($51 billion) or even more.

Japan also faces a massive cleanup task outside the east coast plant if residents are to be allowed to go home. The Environment Ministry says about 2,400 square km (930 square miles) of land around the plant may need to be decontaminated, an area roughly the size of Luxembourg.

The crisis shook the public's faith in nuclear energy and Japan is now reviewing an earlier plan to raise the proportion of electricity generated from nuclear power to 50 percent by 2030 from 30 percent in 2010.

Japan may not immediately walk away from nuclear power, but few doubt that nuclear power will play a lesser role in future.

Living in fear of radiation is part of life for residents both near and far from the plant. Cases of excessive radiation in vegetables, tea, milk, seafood and water have stoked anxiety despite assurances from public officials that the levels detected are not dangerous.

Chernobyl's experience shows that anxiety is likely to persist for years, with residents living near the former Soviet plant still regularly checking produce for radiation before consuming it 25 years after the disaster.

(Additional reporting by Yoko Kubota, Fredrik Dahl in VIENNA and Nina Chestney in LONDON; Writing by Tomasz Janowski; Editing by Mark Bendeich and Robert Birsel)

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Japan set to declare nuclear plant stable (AP)

TOKYO – Japan's government was to declare Friday that the tsunami-devastated Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant had finally achieved a "cold shutdown," meaning it has stabilized and is no longer leaking substantial amounts of radiation.

The announcement would mark a big milestone nine months after the March 11 tsunami touched off a crisis at the plant and sent three of its reactors into meltdowns. Experts noted, however, that the facility remains vulnerable to more problems and will take decades of difficult and dangerous work to safely close down.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was to announce the government's assessment of conditions at the plant in a news conference later Friday.

The government's official endorsement of the claim by Tokyo Electric Power Co. that the reactors have reached cold shutdown status is a necessary step toward revising evacuation zones around the plant and focusing efforts from simply stabilizing the facility to actually starting the arduous process of shutting it down.

But the assessment has some important caveats.

The announcement is expected to say Fukushima has reached cold shutdown "conditions"_ a less definitive phrasing reflecting the fact that TEPCO cannot measure temperatures of melted fuel in the damaged reactors in the same way as with normally functioning ones. So the government also attached additional conditions to be met, including minimizing radiation leaks around the plant and taking backup safety measures to ensure Fukushima's wrecked reactors are safely cooled.

Even so, the announcement would mark the end of the second phase of the government's lengthy roadmap to completely decommission the plant, which is expected to take 30 years or more.

Officials can now start discussing whether to allow some evacuated residents who lived in areas with lesser damage from the plant to return home — although a 12-mile (20-kilometer) zone around the plant is expected to remain off limits for years to come.

Some 100,000 people were displaced by the crisis.

A cold shutdown normally means a nuclear reactor's coolant system is at atmospheric pressure and the its reactor core is at a temperature below 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius), making it impossible for a chain reaction to take place.

According to TEPCO, temperature gauges inside the Fukushima reactors show the pressure vessel is at around 70 C (158 F). The government also says the amount of radiation now being released around the plant is at or below 1 millisievert per year — equivalent to the annual legal exposure limit for ordinary citizens before the crisis began.

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2nd earthquake of day shakes northern Japan (AP)

TOKYO – Two strong earthquakes rattled northern Japan on Thursday, but neither caused any apparent damage or a tsunami.

A magnitude-6.1 quake struck Thursday evening south of the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

It hit about 465 miles (750 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo and 19 miles (30 kilometers) below the sea surface. The agency did not issue a tsunami warning.

About 3,900 households in the towns of Erimo and Samani lost electricity shortly after the quake, but power was restored about an hour later, according to the Hokkaido Electric Power Co.

The shaking was not felt in Tokyo, though a morning quake was.

That magnitude-6.0 temblor struck just off the coast near the nuclear power plant damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The two shakings are believed unrelated and did not affect the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant or other nuclear plants in the region.

The March 11 magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami wiped out large parts of Japan's northeastern coast and left nearly 20,000 people dead or missing. The twin disasters also triggered a nuclear crisis, forcing about 100,000 people to flee their homes due to leaking radiation.

Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim. About 90 percent of the world's quakes occur in the area.

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Study shows deeper meltdown at Japan nuke reactor (AP)

TOKYO – Radioactive debris from melted fuel rods may have seeped deeper into the floor of a Japan's tsunami-hit nuclear reactor than previously thought, to within a foot from breaching the crucial steel barrier, a new simulation showed Wednesday.

The findings will not change the ongoing efforts to stabilize the reactors more than eight months after the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was disabled, but they harshly depict the meltdowns that occurred and conditions within the reactors, which will be off-limits for years.

The plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said its latest simulation showed fuel at the No. 1 reactor may have eroded part of the primary containment vessel's thick concrete floor. The vessel is a beaker-shaped steel container, set into the floor. A concrete foundation below that is the last manmade barrier before earth.

The fuel came within a foot of the container's steel bottom in the worst-case scenario but has been somewhat cooled, TEPCO's nuclear safety official Yoshihiro Oyama said at a government workshop. He said fuel rods in the No. 1 reactor were the worst damaged because it lost cooling capacity before the other two reactors, leaving its rods dry and overheated for hours before water was pumped in.

The nuclear crisis following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused massive radiation leaks and the relocation of some 100,000 people.

Another simulation on the structure released by the government-funded Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization, or JNES, said the erosion of the concrete could be deeper and the possibility of structural damage to the reactor's foundation needs to be studied.

JNES official Masanori Naito said the melting fuel rods lost their shape as they collapsed to the bottom of the vessel, then deteriorated into drops when water pumping resumed, and the fuel drops spattered and smashed against the concrete as they fell, Naito said.

TEPCO and government officials are aiming to achieve "cold shutdown" by the end of the year — a first step toward creating a stable enough environment for work to proceed on removing the reactors' nuclear fuel and closing the plant altogether.

The government estimates it will take 30 years or more to safely decommission Fukushima Dai-ichi.

Wednesday's simulations depict what happened early in the crisis and do not mean a recent deterioration of the No. 1 reactor. Oyama said, however, the results are based only on available data and may not match the actual conditions inside the reactors, which cannot be opened for years.

Some experts have raised questions about achieving the "cold shutdown," which means bringing the temperature of the pressure vessel containing healthy fuel rods to way below the benchmark 100 Celsius (212 Fahrenheit). They say the fuel is no longer there and measuring the temperature of empty cores is meaningless, while nobody knows where and how hot the melted fuel really is.

Kiyoharu Abe, a nuclear expert at JNES, said it's too early to make a conclusion and more simulations should be done to get accurate estimates.

"I don't think the simulation today was wrong, but we should look at this from various viewpoints rather than making a conclusion from one simulation," Abe said. "It's just the beginning of a long process."

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Magnitude-5.9 quake hits near Japan nuclear site (AP)

TOKYO – A strong earthquake struck Thursday morning near the Japan nuclear power plant hit by a powerful tsunami earlier this year. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude-5.9 quake struck shortly before 4:30 a.m. local time. It hit 62 miles (101 kilometers) east of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. The quake struck at a depth of 23 miles (37 kilometers).

The quake struck 151 miles (244 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not immediately issue a tsunami alert.

Similar quakes have struck in the region since a March 11 magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami wiped out part of Japan's northeastern coast and left nearly 20,000 people dead or missing.

The March tsunami also touched off a nuclear crisis when it heavily damaged the Fukushima plant, forcing about 100,000 people to flee their homes. They still have no idea when they can return.

The region lies on the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones that stretches around the Pacific Rim. About 90 percent of the world's quakes occur in the region.

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Japan allows partial glimpse inside crippled nuclear plant (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) – Conditions at Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant, devastated by a tsunami in March, were slowly improving to the point where a "cold shutdown" would be possible as planned, officials said on Saturday during a tour of the facility.

Officials shepherded a group of about 30 mainly Japanese journalists through the plant for the first time since the meltdown of the plant's reactors, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

Cooling systems at the plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, were knocked out by the powerful tsunami and evidence of the devastation was clear to see.

The nuclear reactor buildings were still surrounded by crumpled trucks, twisted metal fences, and large, dented water tanks. Smaller office buildings around the reactors were left as they were abandoned on March 11, when the tsunami hit.

Cranes filled the skyline in testimony to recovery efforts.

Journalists on the tour mainly stayed on a bus as they were driven around the plant and were not allowed near the reactor buildings. Still, they all had to wear protective suits, double layers of gloves and plastic boot covers and hair nets.

All carried respiration masks and radiation detectors.

"From the data at the plant that I have seen, there is no doubt that the reactors have been stabilized," Masao Yoshida, chief of the Daiichi plant, told the group.

The compound may still be littered with rubble, but Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the utility operating the plant, has succeeded in bringing down the temperatures at the three damaged reactors from levels considered dangerous.

They are confident they will be able to declare a "cold shutdown" -- when temperatures are stable below boiling point -- as scheduled by the end of this year.

While Tepco had managed to stabilize conditions so workers could enter the reactor buildings, Yoshida said there was still danger involved for those working there.

The disaster prompted the government to declare a 20 km (12 miles) no-entry zone around the plant, forcing the evacuation of about 80,000 residents.

A cold shutdown is one of the conditions that must be met before the government considers lifting its entry ban.

As an emergency measure early in the crisis, Tepco tried to cool the damaged reactors by pumping in huge volumes of water, much of it from the sea, only to leave a vast amount of tainted runoff that threatened to leak out into the ocean.

It solved the problem by building a cooling system to clean the radioactive runoff, using some of the water to cool the reactors.

A group of white tents houses the cleaning facility. In front were hoisted the flags of the United States, France and Japan -- the countries that provided the technology for the decontamination system.

"Every time I come back, I feel conditions have improved. This is due to your hard work ," Japan's environment and nuclear crisis minister Goshi Hosono told workers at the plant.

However, Hosono warned it would still take about 30 years to dismantle the reactors after a cold shutdown was achieved.

Workers engaged in the recovery effort are stationed at J-Village, a national soccer training center near Daiichi that has been converted into an operational base.

Tepco says up to 3,300 workers a day arrive from J-Village, located on the edge of the 20 km no-entry zone.

At J-Village, workers on their way to the plant lined up at a white tent to change into protective gear. Every day when they return, the workers discard their protective clothing, which is treated as radioactive waste and stored.

A Tepco guide said every piece of discarded clothing has been kept there since March 17, about 480,000 sets heaped in large piles or put in bed-sized containers and stacked in rows.

(Reporting by a pool reporter representing foreign media in Japan; Writing by Shinichi Saoshiro; Editing by Paul Tait)

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Japan bans rice grown near crippled nuke plant (AP)

TOKYO – Japan has banned shipments of rice grown near a tsunami-hit nuclear power plant for the first time after detecting radiation exceeding the legal limit.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Thursday that a sample of rice from a farm contained 630 becquerels of cesium per kilogram. Cesium is among the radioactive materials that leaked from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant after it was damaged by a March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Under Japanese regulations, rice with more than 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram is not allowed to be consumed.

Officials have tested rice at hundreds of spots in Fukushima, and none had previously exceeded the limit. Fukushima only last month declared that rice grown in the prefecture was safe.

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1st look at Japan nuke plant: rubble amid progress (AP)

By DAVID GUTTENFELDER and ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press David Guttenfelder And Eric Talmadge, Associated Press – Sat Nov 12, 7:07 am ET

OKUMA, Japan – Two reactor buildings once painted in a cheery sky blue loom over the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Their roofs are blasted away, their crumbled concrete walls reduced to steel frames.

In their shadow, plumbers, electricians and truck drivers, sometimes numbering in the thousands, go dutifully about their work, all clad from head to toe in white hazmat suits. Their job — cleaning up the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl — will take decades to complete.

Reporters, also in radiation suits, visited the ravaged facility Saturday for the first time since Japan's worst tsunami in centuries swamped the plant March 11, causing reactor explosions and meltdowns and turning hundreds of square miles (kilometers) of countryside into a no man's land.

Eight months later, the plant remains a shambles. Mangled trucks, flipped over by the power of the wave, still clutter its access roads. Rubble remains strewn where it fell. Pools of water cover parts of the once immaculate campus.

Tens of thousands of the plant's former neighbors may never be able to go home. And just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki become icons of the horrors of nuclear weapons, Fukushima has become the new rallying cry of the global anti-nuclear energy movement.

Yet this picture is one of progress, Japanese officials say. It has taken this long to make the plant stable enough to allow Saturday's tour, which included representatives of the Japanese and international media — including The Associated Press. Officials expect to complete an early but important step toward cleaning up the accident by the end of the year.

"I think it's remarkable that we've come this far," Environment Minister Goshi Hosono, Japan's chief nuclear crisis response official, said before leading the tour. "The situation at the beginning was extremely severe. At least we can say we have overcome the worst."

The group was taken through the center of the facility, a once-neat row of reactor buildings that are now shells of shattered walls and steel frames. Journalists were then briefed inside the plant's emergency operations center, a spacious, bunker-like structure where it is safe to remove the heavy protective gear required outdoors.

Woefully unprepared for the wave that swept over its breakwater, the plant just 140 miles (225 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo was doomed almost from the start.

"During the first week of the accident, I thought several times that we were all going to die," plant chief Masao Yoshida said.

At the height of the crisis, all but a few dozen workers — dubbed the "Fukushima 50" — were evacuated. Officials boast that number is now up to as many as 3,000 a day, compared with the pre-crisis work force of 6,400.

Evidence of the tremendous man-hours already invested in the cleanup is piling up in the workers' staging area, on the edge of the 12-mile (20-kilometer) no-go zone around the plant. More than 480,000 sets of used protective gear — which can be worn only once — lie in crates or plastic bags at the complex, which before the tsunami was a training facility for national-level soccer teams.

Kazuo Okawa, 56, who worked at Fukushima for 20 years, was called back to join an emergency crew for several days in April. His team wore three layers of gloves, full-face masks, double-layer Tyvek protective coveralls, rubber boots with plastic covers and plastic head covers. They carried personal Geiger counters.

"Obviously, it was very dangerous at that time," he recalled during a recent visit to Tokyo. "Luckily, we got out without experiencing any life-threatening situations."

Workers like Okawa — in Chernobyl they were called "liquidators" — have restored the plant's supply of electricity, set up elaborate cooling and drainage systems, rebuilt crumbled walls and erected a huge tent to cover one of the worst-hit reactors, cutting the amount of radioactivity leaking into the surrounding environment.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the plant, says it will achieve a "cold shutdown" by the end of the year — a first step toward creating a stable enough environment for work to proceed on removing the reactors' nuclear fuel and closing the plant altogether.

But that is by no means the end of the story.

A preliminary government report released this month predicted it will take 30 years or more to safely decommission Fukushima Dai-ichi. Like Chernobyl, it will probably be encased in a concrete and steel "sarcophagus."

Hiroaki Koide, a nuclear physicist at Kyoto University, said he doubts the decommissioning process will go as smoothly as the government hopes. He said pools for spent fuel remain highly volatile, and cleaning up the three reactor cores that melted through their innermost chambers will be a massive challenge.

"Nobody knows where exactly the fuel is, or in what condition," he said. "The reactors will have to be entombed in a sarcophagus, with metal plates inserted underneath to keep it watertight. But within 25 to 30 years, when the cement starts decaying, that will have to be entombed in another layer of cement. It's just like Russian Matryoshka dolls, one inside the other."

The no-go zone around the plant will likely be in effect for years, if not decades, to come. Officials reluctantly admit that tens of thousands of evacuated residents may never be able to return home.

Recent studies suggest that Japan continues to significantly underestimate the scale of the disaster — which could have health and safety implications far into the future.

According to a study led by Andreas Stohl the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, twice as much radioactive cesium-137 — a cancer-causing agent — was pumped into the atmosphere than Japan had announced, reaching 40 percent of the total from Chernobyl. The French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety found that 30 times more cesium-137 was released into the Pacific than the plant's owner has owned up to.

"We have not studied the content of their research, and are not in a position to respond," said Hiroki Kawamata, a TEPCO spokesman. "We have no plans at this point to modify our estimates."

Before the crisis, resource-poor Japan relied on nuclear power for about one-third of its electricity. It was planning to boost that share to 50 percent by 2030.

Without nuclear, Japan will have to import more fossil fuels, cutting its potential GDP by 1.2 percent and costing 7.2 trillion yen ($94 billion) annually, according to an estimate by the Japan Center for Economic Research.

But public support for nuclear power — and the trust that the industry is built on — has plummeted.

Tens of thousands of Japanese have turned out in protest. Suspicious of government and TEPCO reassurances, grassroots groups are scouring the country with radiation detectors. Several "hot spots" in and around Tokyo are now being investigated by the authorities.

Because of the outcry, Japan has essentially abandoned its long-term goal of expanding nuclear energy production. The status of even its existing plants is murky.

Currently, 43 of Japan's 54 nuclear reactors are shut down, either because of mechanical problems or routine inspections, which must be conducted every 13 months. Local approval is required to restart nuclear power plants, even after routine inspections, and local leaders fearing repercussions at the polls have been loath to provide it.

TEPCO announced two weeks ago there will be enough power to see the country through the winter, but after that, the effect of the nuclear crisis on electricity production could become even more acute. If political resistance remains as high as it is now, every nuclear reactor in Japan could be offline by May.

___

Talmadge reported from Hirono. APTN producer Miki Toda, at the plant, and writer Mari Yamaguchi, in Tokyo, contributed to this story.

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Utility: No risk from fission at Japan nuke plant (AP)

TOKYO – A Japanese utility operator has denied any problematic nuclear reactions at a tsunami-hit power plant, saying a radioactive gas in one of the damaged reactors came from spontaneous fission that occurs in any idle reactor.

The operator this week found radioactive xenon, initially hinting unexpected nuclear fission and injected boric acid as a precaution against further nuclear reactions.

The Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday that further examination determined that xenon was produced by curium, a nuclear fuel component that causes spontaneous fission.

The utility denied any new problem inside the Unit 2 reactor, citing no change in temperature or pressure. It said a recently installed more sensitive monitor detected xenon that was there all along.

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Paper shows Japan feared aftershocks at nuke plant (AP)

TOKYO – Japan feared three months after the Fukushima nuclear power plant was hit by a tsunami that aftershocks could further damage one of its fuel storage pools, causing rods inside to melt and spew radiation within hours, according to a newly released document.

The Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization said it carried out a simulation that showed some 1,500 mostly used fuel rods at the plant's No. 4 reactor building could start breaking in two hours if aftershocks further damaged the pool and caused cooling water to escape. The fuel rods could start melting within eight hours, the organization said in a report dated June 30 and published Friday.

The report shows that the pool remained vulnerable for nearly four months until its operator completed reinforcement work in July. Tokyo Electric Power Co. had said before then that the building could withstand major aftershocks without reinforcement, but made repairs after acknowledging structural damage and water leaks from the pool area.

The March 11 quake and tsunami triggered meltdowns at the plant's three reactors. Explosions also damaged their buildings, plus Unit 4 next to them.

The simulation was based on a scenario that cooling water was lost in the Unit 4 spent fuel storage pool, located on the top floor of the building. The Unit 4 pool was considered high risk as it contained more fuel than the other three pools, as it also stored fuel rods that had been moved from the unit's reactor core, which was being fitted with new parts.

In the report, the government-funded JNES said a loss of pool water due to additional cracks from aftershocks could cause the fuel rods to overheat. Their casings could break and start spewing radiation in about 2 hours. Fuel pellets inside each rod could start melting within 7.7 hours at about 2,800 Celsius (5,000 Fahrenheit), it said.

The report was part of hundreds of pages of documents containing simulation results on dozens of accident scenarios by JNES earlier in the crisis.

Plant workers are still struggling to contain radiation still leaking from the plant, although the amount is far less than before.

TEPCO said Friday that Unit 1 — one of the most damaged buildings — now has an outer shell made of airtight polyester designed to contain radioactive particles inside the building. Similar covers are also planned for other buildings.

Government officials are also making massive decontamination efforts in areas around the plant, from where tens of thousands of people had to evacuate.

Recent discoveries of radiation "hot spots" in and around Tokyo have also caused fears among people there, where many concerned parents routinely check their neighborhoods for radiation. In most cases the reading is estimated to be below the internationally accepted annual limit, but critics say the standard exceeds Japan's cap before the accident and the government should expand the scope of decontamination.

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Strong quake rocks northeast Japan (AP)

TOKYO – A strong earthquake has rocked northeastern Japan, which is still recovering from the devastating tsunami six months ago.

The quake Thursday had a preliminary magnitude of 5.6. There were no immediate reports of damage and no tsunami warning was issued.

The earthquake was centered off Fukushima, which was severely hit by the quake and tsunami in March that left more than 21,000 people dead or missing. Fukushima is about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo.

The March disaster touched off the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, generating meltdowns, fires and explosions at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear facility.

The plant's operator said there were no signs of abnormalities at the plant from the quake on Thursday.

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Contaminated Rice, Radiation Problems Continue for Japan (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Radiation is an ongoing problem for Japan with recent reports focusing on contaminated rice. The lasting impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami continues to affect the country. However, I am forced to question why the rice was being grown in areas contaminated by the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Officials were aware of the nuclear plants releasing iodine 131 and cesium 137 into the air in March, yet they seem to have allowed food production to continue.

Lasting Tragedy

The March 11 earthquake and tsunami led to the damage of several Japanese nuclear power plants. The release of radioactive materials including iodine 131 and cesium 137 forced officials to caution residents about drinking milk and eating contaminated food. However, they also assured residents that the land surrounding the nuclear plants would be free from the effects of radiation within a few weeks. This was misleading information because cesium 137's half-life, the time necessary for half of it to decay, is 30 years.

Problems

Scientists warned Japan that the effects of radiation would not disappear quickly. Soil and water contamination would continue to be hurdles for many years. Although Japan made a commitment to continue testing food for radiation levels, it has allowed crops to grow in contaminated areas. The impact of eating food contaminated with radioactive particles may be difficult to measure initially. However, there is a strong link to cancer.

Rice and Tea

Japan's contaminated rice may have grabbed more headlines, but it is not the first time that the issue of radiation and food has come to the surface. In June, the Japanese government attempted to stop tea shipments because high levels of cesium 137 were found. The tea contained 3,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium. Compared to Japan's regulations of not exceeding 500 becquerels of cesium per kilogram, this was an extremely high amount.

The most disturbing aspect of the tea story is that it questions the officials' ability to stop shipments. The governor of the area with the contaminated product was defiant and blatantly announced his refusal to follow the government's instructions. How safe is Japan's food supply and how is this affecting other nations who receive the imports? Although it is obvious the country is making a strong effort to test food and shipments, are they able to control all of the situations and how many products go untested? Japan must face these uncomfortable questions as the country continues to deal with the aftermath of March 11.

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New PM: Japan should aim to reduce nuclear power (AP)

TOKYO – Japan's new prime minister has promised to restart nuclear plants following safety checks ordered after the crisis at the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda also said Tuesday in his first policy speech since taking office two weeks ago that the country should reduce its reliance on atomic energy over the long term, but offered no specifics.

More than 30 of Japan's 54 reactors have been idled, causing electricity shortages amid sweltering summer temperatures.

Noda also said he would press ahead with the recovery of the tsunami-battered northeastern region, calling on his fellow citizens not to forget "the spirit of dignity of all Japanese" in the face of disaster.

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Japan marks 6 months since earthquake, tsunami (AP)

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA, Associated Press Tomoko A. Hosaka, Associated Press – Sun Sep 11, 11:58 am ET

TOKYO – Up and down Japan's devastated northeast coast, survivors prayed and communities came together Sunday to mark six months since the massive earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11, a date that changed everything for them and their country.

As the world commemorated the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, Japanese parents hung colorful paper cranes for their lost children and monks chanted in front of smashed buildings. Thousands also marched in the streets to demand that the country abandon nuclear power because of damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

At precisely 2:46 p.m., they stopped and observed a minute of silence.

The magnitude-9.0 earthquake produced the sort of devastation Japan hadn't seen since World War II. The tsunami that followed engulfed the northeast and wiped out entire towns. The waves inundated the Fukushima plant, triggering the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Some 20,000 people are dead or missing. More than 800,000 homes were completely or partially destroyed. The disaster crippled businesses, roads and infrastructure. The Japanese Red Cross Society estimates that 400,000 people were displaced.

Half a year later, there are physical signs of progress.

Much of the debris has been cleared away or at least organized into big piles. In the port city of Kesennuma, many of the boats carried inland by the tsunami have been removed. Most evacuees have moved out of high school gyms and into temporary shelters or apartments.

The supply chain problems that led to critical parts shortages for Japan's auto and electronics makers are nearly resolved. Industrial production has almost recovered to pre-quake levels.

But beyond the surface is anxiety and frustration among survivors facing an uncertain future. They are growing increasingly impatient with a government they describe as too slow and without direction.

Masayuki Komatsu, a fisherman in Kesennuma, wants to restart his abalone farming business.

But he worries about radiation in the sea from the still-leaking Fukushima plant and isn't sure if his products will be safe enough to sell. He said officials are not providing adequate radiation information for local fisherman.

"I wonder if the government considers our horrible circumstances and the radiation concerns of people in my business," said Komatsu, who also lost his home.

Another resident, 80-year-old Takashi Sugawara, lost his sister in the tsunami and now lives in temporary housing. He wants to rebuild his home but is stuck in limbo for the time being.

"My family is not very wealthy, and I only wish that the country would decide what to do about the area as soon as possible," Sugawara said.

He might be waiting for a while. The Nikkei financial newspaper reported this week that many municipalities in the hardest-hit prefecture of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima have yet to draft reconstruction plans.

Of the 31 cities, towns and villages severely damaged by the disaster, just four have finalized their plans, the Nikkei said. The scale of the disaster, the national government's slow response and quarrels among residents have delayed the rebuilding process.

Workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant are still struggling to meet a goal of bringing it to a cold shutdown by early next year.

"We are barely keeping the reactors under control and the situation is still difficult," Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Yoshinori Moriyama said in Tokyo.

In Fukushima city, dozens of citizens rallied Sunday outside a government-backed international conference at which scientists agreed that the radiation danger from the nuclear plant was far less than Chernobyl. The protesters accused conference organizers of trying to underestimate the risk for children.

Citizens also demonstrated in major cities like Tokyo and Osaka, where thousands of anti-nuclear protesters demanded that the country give up nuclear power. Activists circled the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry holding banners saying, "Nuclear power? Goodbye."

Criticism of the government's handling of the disaster and nuclear crisis led former Prime Minister Naoto Kan to resign. Former Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda took over nine days ago, becoming Japan's sixth new prime minister in five years.

He spent much of Saturday visiting Miyage and Iwate prefectures, promising more funding to speed up recovery efforts and trying to shore up confidence in his administration.

But the trip was overshadowed later in the day by his first big political embarrassment. Noda's new trade minister Yoshio Hachiro resigned, caving into intense pressure after calling the area around the nuclear plant "a town of death," a comment seen as insensitive to nuclear evacuees.

Public support for the new government started out strong, with an approval rating of 62.8 percent in a Kyodo News poll released last Saturday. Hachiro's resignation will likely translate into a drop and new doubts about Noda's ability to lead.

Regardless of politics, what's clear is that the road ahead will be long.

"Given the enormous scale of the destruction and the massive area affected, this will be a long and complex recovery and reconstruction operation," Tadateru Konoe, the Red Cross president, said in a statement. "It will take at least five years to rebuild, but healing the mental scars could take much longer."

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Associated Press writer Mari Yamaguchi in Fukushima and APTN videojournalist Miki Toda in Kesennuma contributed to this report.

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Japan anti-nuclear protests mark 6 months since quake (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) – Anti-nuclear protesters took to the streets of Tokyo and other cities on Sunday to mark six months since the March earthquake and tsunami and vent their anger at the government's handling of the nuclear crisis set off by meltdowns at the Fukushima power plant.

In one of the largest protests, an estimated 2,500 people marched past the headquarters of the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, and created a "human chain" around the building of the Trade Ministry that oversees the power industry.

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan's northeastern coast left 20,000 dead or missing and crippled the Fukushima plant, triggering the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

The accident that led to radiation and contamination fears spurred widespread calls for an end to Japan's reliance on nuclear power in the quake-prone country.

Protesters, marching to the beat of drums, called for a complete shutdown of nuclear power plants across Japan and demanded a shift in government policy toward alternative sources of energy.

Among the protestors were four young men who declared the start of a 10-day hunger strike to bring about change in Japan's nuclear policy.

"I believe it is very important that the young generation voices opposition against nuclear power, and in order to bring our point across we need to put ourselves on the line and that's why we chose to hunger strike for 10 days," said 20-year-old Naoya Okamoto.

Japanese media reported similar protests in other cities across Japan on the day many offered prayers to those who died in the March 11 disaster.

(Reporting by Olivier Fabre; Writing by Tomasz Janowski)

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Japan storm death toll rises to 25, more missing (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan's death toll from tropical depression Talas, earlier downgraded from a tropical storm, has risen to 25 with 52 missing, the government said Monday, as torrential rain pounded the west of the country at the weekend, triggering mudslides and bursting river banks.

Talas, which cut through Japan's main island Saturday and Sunday, was off the country's western coast as of 8:00 p.m. EDT, heading northeast, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

There were no reports of major disruption to factory operations and Tokyo Electric Power Co said its tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, located in eastern Japan, has not been affected by the storm.

Talas has mostly moved at about 6 mph, roughly the speed of a bicycle, and its slow progress caused heavy and prolonged rainfall over Japan, the agency said.

"We'll do our utmost in terms of search and rescue operations," Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters when asked about the disaster.

As Talas moves on, heavy rain is expected in the north of the country, though JMA warned residents of the west to remain on alert for landslides.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Joseph Radford)

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Ex-Thai PM defends contentious trip to Japan (AP)

By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA, Associated Press Tomoko A. Hosaka, Associated Press – Tue Aug 23, 6:55 am ET

TOKYO – Fugitive former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra defended his controversial visit to Japan on Tuesday, saying he wants to support the disaster-stricken country that helped his own people recover from a massive tsunami in 2004.

"I feel like I'm attached to what's happening there," he said of northeast Japan, which he plans to visit this week to view the damage caused by Japan's huge March 11 tsunami.

Thailand's opposition has criticized his visit and accused the country's foreign minister of aiding a fugitive by asking Tokyo to grant a visa to Thaksin, who is living in self-imposed exile to escape a two-year jail sentence for corruption.

"Coming to Japan is my own right," he said at one of two news conferences he held in Tokyo on Tuesday.

Japan was one of the biggest aid donors after an Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries, including Thailand.

Thaksin, 62, was ousted as prime minister in a 2006 military coup. He remains a highly divisive figure in his homeland, where he is adored by the poor masses but distrusted by the established elite, including the military.

His ouster set off a sometimes violent struggle between his supporters and opponents that has left the country bitterly divided.

His sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, was elected prime minister in July, but many view Thaksin as the real power behind the new administration.

Thaksin acknowledged that he is extremely close to his younger sister. He said they maintain regular contact and he offers advice when she asks, but denied that his influence extends beyond that.

But his sister's rise to power could lead to Thaksin's eventual return under a general amnesty, which would enrage his opponents and could destabilize Thailand.

Analysts said trips like the one to Japan suggest Thaksin is eager to boost his image and legitimacy on the international stage.

"Acceptance from the global community undoubtedly is good PR for him, and he can use it as an example of his rightfulness from overseas when he attempts to win back domestic approval," said Somchai Phagaphasvivat, a political scientist at Thammasat University.

Thaksin, who arrived in Japan on Monday, told reporters that he has no plans to return to Thailand unless there is reconciliation in the country's polarized political climate — something he said was "not there."

"I don't want to fuel any more conflict," Thaksin said. "I just want to be part of the solution, not part of the problems."

He also said he was willing to do jail time if he actually committed a crime, but described the charges against him as politically motivated.

The previous Thai government, led by his political opponents, revoked Thaksin's passport and he has been using one issued by Montenegro.

Japanese officials said Tokyo granted Thaksin a visa after receiving a request for assistance from the Thai government. Thai officials explained that Thaksin's visit was to provide assistance to tsunami victims, said Masaru Satoh, an official at Japan's Foreign Ministry.

Japanese law states that people convicted of crimes with sentences of more than one year will be denied entry visas, but also stipulates that exceptions can be made if there is sufficient reason, Satoh said.

Thaksin's Japanese visa has stirred up controversy in Thailand, where former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's Democrat Party is trying to impeach Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul for allegedly aiding a fugitive by asking Tokyo to grant the visa.

Surapong has denied making such a request and is suing Abhisit for defamation.

Thaksin said his sister "had nothing to do" with his trip and offered a new explanation of his visa.

He said the previous government had sought to block his travels by asking governments around the world to deny him entry. When asked by Japan's Foreign Ministry, the new Thai government merely confirmed that such requests were no longer valid, he said.

"So the approval of the visa is totally the discretion of the Japanese government, not us," Thaksin said. "But definitely I'm grateful that they allowed me to come."

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Associated Press writers Mick Elmore and Thanyarat Doksone in Bangkok and Malcolm Foster in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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Insight: Japan struggles to rebuild, leaving lives in limbo (Reuters)

YAMADAMACHI/TOKYO (Reuters) – Sakari Minato has fixed up his house just enough for his family to move back in. The walls still have holes, the windows are temporarily sealed. You can still see the water marks on the outside of the home left by the March 11 tsunami that roared into this northeastern coastal fishing town at the speed of a freight train and bulldozed everything in its path.

Minato doesn't know whether to spend the $100,000 needed to completely restore the house or move the family to higher ground away from the ocean. He still doesn't know whether the government will declare his part of town by the coast an uninhabitable tsunami zone.

Five months after Japan's worst disaster in generations left more than 20,000 dead or missing, entire communities along the country's northeastern coast face a similar dilemma. They have cleaned up much of the rubble and mud, fixed up roads and restored power. Tokyo and local governments, however, have yet to come up with detailed plans and money needed to start the actual rebuilding.

Every day of delay brings more agony for hundreds of thousands of survivors who cannot move on with their lives and makes it increasingly unlikely the economy will get a powerful jolt from the rebuilding effort any time soon.

"Even if I get the house fixed, it could be the case that the national government ends up buying this area in two years because it's a tsunami-flooded district," said Minato, a 48-year-old auto dealer. "So we stopped fixing the house for now since it's good enough to live in."

His family barely escaped the deadly waves and a fire that wiped out most houses in his neighborhood in Yamadamachi, a fishing town about 470 km northeast of Tokyo which lost nearly 800 of its 19,400 residents.

When the disaster struck on March 11 government planners, economists and aid agencies looked back 16 years when a magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit Kobe killing 6,400. The conclusion was that the triple blow of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, a tsunami that reached heights of 15 meters (50 feet), and a nuclear plant meltdown crisis, eclipsed anything Japan had experienced in the past half a century.

Yet Tokyo was expected to crank out a hefty emergency budget by August, allowing rebuilding to start in earnest in the second half of the year. Even as that timetable slipped, the government remained optimistic that reconstruction would kick in by the final quarter of this year.

WISHFUL THINKING

Today this looks like wishful thinking and reasons can be found both on Japan's northeastern Pacific coast and in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo's government district.

"Reconstruction would be a big boost to the economy ... But full-fledged rebuilding may need to wait until next year," said Takashi Onishi, professor of city and regional planning at the University of Tokyo.

Onishi sat on the government's advisory panel on reconstruction and is helping the fishing towns of Kamaishi and Kesennuma in their reconstruction planning.

Japan's steel industry initially counted on reconstruction to boost demand by 3-4 million tonnes over the next three years, but analysts have slashed their forecasts for next year and beyond by as much as half.

About half of the estimated 22.6 million tonnes of rubble the tsunami left behind has been cleared and the government aims to remove most of the debris from residential areas by the end of this month.

But out of nearly half a million people displaced by the disaster, 84,000 remain in evacuation centers, temporary housing or with relatives or friends. They will not move on until local authorities decide what they want to rebuild and what to move out of the danger zone. Once that is decided, Tokyo will draw up a national plan and allocate funds.

"How much will the government help? Or big firms and reconstruction funds? We are reliant on them and the question is where is the money," said Katsutoshi Tomiyama, 70. His jazz café in the picturesque fishing town of Rikuzentakata was swept away and he hopes to reopen it in neighboring Ofunato, where he lives in temporary housing.

Officials in Tokyo point the finger up north and vent their frustration with how slowly requests from local communities are trickling in. Some local officials admit they are overwhelmed by the enormity of the task.

"Honestly speaking, this is the first experience for us as well and we are now fumbling our way to figure out what and how to move forward," said one official at a coastal town in Iwate prefecture. The town hopes to have a final reconstruction plan ready by the end of the year.

Similarly in Rikuzentakata, where nearly 1,800 of its 24,250 residents are dead or still missing, officials aim to prepare a plan in November hoping to get money from the regular budget for the next fiscal year starting in April 2012 rather than this year's emergency allotments.

That means that the bulk of the spending may be pushed back well into next year.

"The national government has revealed a basic plan, but the details are not out yet," city official Takeo Banno said.

The relocation of homes to safe areas, which is one of the focal points of the rebuilding, could take several years.

"In three to five years, large-scale relocation of houses is likely to make headway," says Shogo Tsugawa, a senior government official in charge of rebuilding of Iwate prefecture.

RE-THINKING AND REBUILDING

To be fair, those dealing with the aftermath of March 11 face a task like none before and Prime Minister Naoto Kan was not exaggerating when he said Japan faced its biggest crisis since World War Two.

Rebuilding what was damaged the way it was done after Kobe is not an option. Even before the disaster struck the Tohoku region was in trouble.

Its fragmented fishing industry was struggling to stay afloat, agriculture dominated by small-plot farmers well past retirement age and its working population was shrinking at the fastest rate in all of aging Japan, having fallen more than 8 percent in the past 15 years.

"We need to avoid just doing the recovery job to pre-quake conditions," said Ryutaro Kono, chief economist at BNP Paribas, who sat on the reconstruction panel.

Among the proposals are consolidating the fishing business, giving tax breaks for investors and creating special economic zones. They also include relocating homes to more elevated areas and rebuilding ports and other tsunami-ravaged facilities.

Aside from the sheer complexity of the challenge is the slow grind of the political process.

The deeply unpopular and increasingly isolated Kan has struggled to pull together his divided party and get any sort of cooperation from an openly hostile opposition that controls the upper house of parliament.

It took two months to get the first $50 billion batch of emergency spending out and another two to sign off on the next $25 billion installment, both earmarked for the initial relief, clean-up and temporary housing.

More than five months after the catastrophe the main spending plan worth up to 13 trillion yen has yet to take shape and no clarity on how it will be financed.

With Kan on his way out, it is anyone's guess when the "big budget" will be ready.

"Government agencies need to work on the extra budget and next year's budget at the same time but there are limitations in terms of manpower," one finance ministry official said.

TIMING MATTERS

In contrast to exasperated residents, financial markets have been sanguine about signs of slippage in reconstruction timetable. Those who are now rethinking their growth assumptions beyond this quarter are more concerned about the strength of the yen and clouds gathering over the global economy.

Some economists say their colleagues may be too complacent and point out that while rebuilding spending will come sooner or later, the timing matters too.

Up to now, the base scenario has been that the serious money will start pouring in the final quarter of this year and early in 2012. That would boost sectors such as construction, steel and machinery at a critical time when the global economy may hit a soft patch and the upswing driven by companies restoring supply chains will have run its course.

Now the risk is the big rebuilding effort will not come in time to act as a cushion.

"Come the winter, seasonal factors may further delay construction projects," said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute.

"From October-December and beyond, the economy is likely to show visible impact from the yen's strength and if there is no lift from reconstruction, the economy's rebound is likely to peter out in the fourth quarter," Kumano says.

While the economy may still get a reprieve if Japan's main export markets recover, those living in the belt of destruction on the coast can only wait or leave.

Hiroki Haga, 63, whose newspaper delivery service in the coastal town of Otsuchicho was washed away by the tsunami, says the risk is that young people will pack up and look for work elsewhere.

"The basics of how the town should be rebuilt are not ready. Our mayor died. No one can do anything."

(Additional reporting by Yuko Takeo; Writing by Yoko Kubota, Rie Ishiguro and Tomasz Janowski; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

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Strong quake hits eastern Japan, no tsunami threat (AP)

TOKYO – Officials say a strong earthquake has hit near Japan's eastern coast, but there is no danger of a tsunami.

Japan's Meteorological Agency says the quake struck Monday evening and registered a preliminary magnitude of 6.0. It was centered off the coast of Ibaraki, about 140 miles (220 kilometers) east of Tokyo, at a depth of 20 miles (30 kilometers).

The agency says there is no danger of a tsunami. No injuries or damage have been reported.

Some 20,000 people died or were left missing across Japan's northeastern coast after a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The disaster damaged a nuclear power plant, forcing another 100,000 people to leave their homes because of a radiation threat.

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