(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) (9501.T) says 11 people were injured.

- Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says the core container at the reactor is intact and the explosion is unlikely to have produced a large escape of radioactivity.

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

- Experts pursue efforts to cool down three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Experts say the use of seawater in this operation is unprecedented.

- 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.

- U.S. warships and planes helping relief efforts have moved away from Japan's Pacific coast temporarily because of low-level radiation.

- 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.

* 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 and 15 trillion yen just to the quake region.

(Tokyo bureau; World Desk Asia)

It's time to disable an obsolete industry, says David Hughes, and support 21st-century methods of generating electricity
Published first on Sunday, March 28, 1999 http://www.post-gazette.com


Almost thirty two years ago in March, the worst nuclear plant accident in the nation occurred at the Three Mile Island plant. In connection with the anniversary, the nuclear industry has been waging a coordinated campaign to revive nuclear power in the United States. We are being told that nuclear energy is safe, clean (the answer to global warming) and an economical way to produce electricity.

		David Hughes is executive director of Citizen Power, a Pittsburgh-based public policy research, education and advocacy organization.

None of these claims withstand scrutiny.

It is well known that nuclear power production creates the deadliest and longest living wastes known to man. The technology to safely dispose of this waste has yet to be developed and it is becoming increasingly clear that safe storage is simply impossible to achieve.

Nuclear plants only seem safe because government safety standards and Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversight have been too lax. There are problems at U.S. nuclear plants just about every day, ranging from incidental to serious.

Some of these problems are close to home. At a plant in Perry, Ohio (near Cleveland), partly owned by Duquesne Light, the zirconium tubes covering the uranium fuel pellets are perforating, causing potentially dangerous radiation leaks within the reactor. The leaks are exposing plant workers to extra radiation and increasing the likelihood that more radiation would be released into the atmosphere in case of a serious accident.

Nine such leaks have been detected at Perry since it began operation in 1987. The latest ones were discovered last September, but apparently Duquesne Light and FirstEnergy (the plant manager) decided to wait until their regularly scheduled maintenance, beginning yesterday before doing anything about them.

(Duquesne Light, by the way, intends to sell its share in the plant this year to FirstEnergy.) Last month the Union of Concerned Scientists succeeded in getting the NRC to hold hearings on the leaks. So far, the NRC has taken no action.

There is a new concern about nuclear power. In states (including Pennsylvania) where electric deregulation has occurred, nuclear plants will have to run practically all the time to be competitive. Unlike other generators, nuclear plants are not designed to operate continuously. Safety is likely to be a casualty of the bottom line.

Nuclear power is not the clean energy its apologists claim. The smelting process used to make commercial grade fuel for nuclear plants contributes to greenhouse gases. Secondly, in addition to the waste problem, nuclear plants pollute our air, only you cannot see, smell or taste what they emit. Some of the most toxic gases known to man are by-products of the fission process and are routinely vented from the "off gas" building at nuclear plants.

You may remember when we were told that nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter." Well, it is not. In fact, nuclear is one of the most expensive ways to produce electricity.

When nuclear proponents provide their figure of what nuclear cost to produce electricity they often leave out the cost of building the plant. Indeed, it was the high cost ($10 billion) to build the Perry 1 and Beaver Valley 2 nuclear plants that now cause Duquesne Light customers to have to pay some of the highest rates in the country. And, it is the high cost of nuclear plants that accounts for most of the "transition" charge on your new electric bill, no matter who supplies your generation.

A gas-fired plant can be built for $350 per kilowatt (kW); wind turbines are being installed at less than $1,000/kw. A nuclear plant costs $3,000 to $4,000 per kw to build. Nuclear fuel is relatively cheap compared to other fuels, but only if you ignore spent fuel permanent storage costs. When these and plant decommissioning costs are included, nuclear power is prohibitively more expensive, on a total cost basis, than other energy sources. Even nuclear power advocates are frightened by the prospect that these costs will be astronomical.

The fact is that nuclear power is obsolete.

There are cutting-edge energy technologies available now that are competitive and more environmentally healthy. Despite being on the short end of government research and development funding, renewable energy technologies' share of U.S. generating capacity (11 percent compared with 14 percent for nuclear) is growing at double-digit rates.

According to a recent study by the Worldwatch Institute, nuclear power "has reached its peak and will begin a sustained decline in the year 2002 to its eventual demise." Even France, the world leader in nuclear power usage with 70 percent of its electricity nuclear-generated, has established a moratorium on nuclear plant construction.

In the United States, no new power plants have been ordered since the mid-1970s. Many utility companies, including Duquesne Light, are planning to unload their nuclear plants. Existing nuclear plants are being purchased for next to nothing , demonstrating their low market value. Only its position near the top of the corporate welfare rolls enables the nuclear industry to hang on.

Nuclear power proponents argue that the United States cannot afford to phase out nuclear power. Studies by the Rocky Mountain Institute show that we could significantly reduce our electricity demand by using energy more efficiently. A concerted national effort, a "war against wasting energy," combined with increased use of new, safe and clean energy technologies would enable the phase out of nuclear power.

It is time for our political leaders to recognize that nuclear power is not worth further investment. As we head into the 21st century, Americans should demand increased utilization of 21st-century energy technologies.

(Reuters) - Judy Stare remembers the day 32 years ago when she and her family fled from the melting core of the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island.



On a day when the dangers of a meltdown at a nuclear power plant in Japan dominated the front pages in the U.S., the memories of those days in 1979 on the banks of the Susquehanna River came back to haunt her as they did for many in this town of 8,700.

Middletown became the center of attention when Three Mile Island, two miles from its downtown, suffered the most serious nuclear accident in the nation's history.

Stare's three children were teenagers then, in high school in a nearby town, and she remembers yanking them out of school so the family could flee the danger area.

"I told them we might never be back," Stare, 70, recalled over breakfast at the popular Brownstone Cafe here.

She allowed them each to take a favorite thing, and remembers with crystal clarity what they brought: her oldest daughter grabbed a family photo album, her youngest daughter found her favorite doll, and her son brought a golf club. "Just like a man," she laughed.

On March 28, the first day of the accident, a mechanical or electrical failure on the turbine side of the building caused one of Three Mile Island's reactors to shut. To relieve the pressure that then built up, a relief valve opened. The valve should have closed when the pressure decreased but the valve remained open and coolant leaked out.

Operators did not realize the coolant was leaking and in the meantime the uranium fuel rods overheated and began to melt. By the time operators realized the coolant had leaked about half of the reactor core had already melted.

Three Mile Island was the worst nuclear power accident in the United States. The crisis lasted four days and was caused by a combination of personnel error, design deficiencies and component failures.

PEOPLE FEEL SAFER

Since Three Mile Island, U.S. authorities have required a strengthening of plant design and equipment, increased training for plant personnel, and an immediate notification of events, among other things.

Many in Middletown now say they feel safer because of what happened in 1979, including one of Stare's breakfast companions, Bill Taxweiler.

"It's the safest plant in the world," he said, citing the many safety changes that were made at the plant after the drama of that year.

His thoughts were echoed by a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group.

"Three Mile Island unit 1 is one of the best operating plants in the world," wrote spokesman Tom Kauffman in an e-mail.

Originally, Three Mile Island had two units. The accident happened in unit 2, which has been permanently closed ever since.

Even some who live on state Route 441, no more than a few hundred yards from the hulking cooling towers, seem content with how things are now.

A householder working in his yard, the towers dominating the view across the road, said he just never thinks about any possible dangers from the nuclear plant.

Still, many in the town say the events in Japan are prompting them to remember the confusion and loss of trust that happened when they fled the area around the Three Mile Island plant, "We could not believe what we were told," Stare said.

Dan Thomasco, 59, another area resident who was there in 1979, said the Japanese crisis brought back many memories. He recalls he took his three dogs and went camping when the evacuation happened.

Many others, also advised to leave Middletown, he said, decided to wait out the crisis in a bar.

For all of the crisis atmosphere around at the time, a report by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, noting that the incident led to no deaths or injuries, explained that estimates of radiological exposure for the 2 million people in the area amounted to about one-sixth of what they might have received from a chest X-ray.

At the time of the crisis, Three Mile Island was owned by General Public Utilities, which has since been taken over. These days the plant is operated by Exelon Corp, the largest owner and operator of nuclear plants in the United States.

The company declined comment on Three Mile Island in light of the Japanese crisis. Instead, it referred calls to the industry trade group, the NEI, which said that the Japanese plants and Three Mile Island are of significantly different design.

(Additional reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York, editing by Martin Howell)

Environmentalists say the possibly catastrophic failure of a Japanese nuclear reactor shows that nuclear power can never be safe.



Two reactors at the Fukushima plant in north-eastern Japan have been damaged by the devastating earthquake that struck nearby on Friday, and at least one is in danger of meltdown.

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Radiation has been released into the air after an explosion at one reactor, and although authorities have said it is not intense enough to affect human health, they have ordered evacuations of people living within 20 kilometres.

"This proves once and for all that nuclear power cannot ever be safe," Greenpeace campaigns head Steve Campbell said today.

"Japan's nuclear plants were built with the latest technology, specifically to withstand natural disasters, yet we still face potential meltdown," he said in a statement.

Greenpeace was also concerned at the lack of information about the total amount of radiation already released, and whether the ponds for spent radioactive fuel - outside the containment area of the reactor - were secure.

"We request that Japan's government share this information with the public immediately," he said.

Anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott said the release of radioactive caesium 137 and iodine 131 into the atmosphere from the Fukushima plant posed grave health risks.

If a meltdown occurred, 200 other isotopes would be released, she said in a statement.

"All of these substances can cause cancer and genetic diseases either in the near or long term," said Ms Caldicott, who is president of the Foundation for a Nuclear Free Planet.

Earthquakes were not unknown in Australia, she said.

"Are we mad enough to introduce this disastrous form of energy into our lives?"

AAP

Washington: With the World War II nuclear bombing suffering weighing heavily on the national psyche, US and Japanese nuclear experts say that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months. 



So far, Japanese officials have said the melting of the nuclear cores in the two plants is assumed to be "partial", and the amount of radioactivity measured outside the plants, though twice the level Japan considers safe, has been relatively modest.

But, the New York Times quoting Pentagon officials reported yesterday that helicopters flying 60 miles from the plant picked up small amounts of radioactive particulates - still being analysed, but presumed to include cesium-137 and iodine-121 - suggesting widening environmental contamination.


Japanese reactor operators now have to periodically release radioactive steam as part of an emergency cooling process for the fuel of the stricken reactors that may continue for a year or more even after fission has stopped.

The plant's operator must constantly try to flood the reactors with seawater, then release the resulting radioactive steam into the atmosphere, several experts familiar with the design of the Daiichi facility was quoted as saying by the paper.

The essential problem is the definition of "off" in a nuclear reactor. When the nuclear chain reaction is stopped and the reactor shuts down, the fuel is still producing about 6 percent as much heat as it did when it was running, caused by continuing radioactivity, the release of subatomic particles and of gamma rays.

Usually when a reactor is first shut down, an electric pump pulls heated water from the vessel to a heat exchanger, and cool water from a river or ocean is brought in to draw off that heat.

But at the Japanese reactors, after losing electric power, that system could not be used. Instead the operators are dumping seawater into the vessel and letting it cool the fuel by boiling. But as it boils, pressure rises too high to pump in more water, so they have to vent the vessel to the atmosphere, and feed in more water, a procedure known as "feed and bleed", the paper said.

When the fuel was intact, the steam they were releasing had only modest amounts of radioactive material, in a non-troublesome form. With damaged fuel, that steam is getting dirtier.

PTI

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters)



A hydrogen explosion rocked the earthquake-stricken nuclear plant in Japan where authorities have been working desperately to avert a meltdown, compounding a nuclear catastrophe caused by Friday's massive quake and tsunami.

Japan, already saddled with debts twice the size of its $5 trillion economy, faces blackouts to conserve energy after the disaster, possible credit downgrades and the government is discussing a temporary tax rise to fund relief work.

The stock market plunged over 6 percent and one economist put the cost of the disaster at between 14 trillion yen ($171 billion) and 15 trillion yen just to the quake-hit region.

Engineeers and rescuers battled through the weekend to prevent a nuclear catastrophe and to care for the millions without power or water in its worst crisis since World War Two, after the earthquake and tsunami that likely killed more than 10,000 people.

Kyodo news agency said 2,000 bodies had been found on the shores of Miyagi prefecture, which took the brunt of the tsunami.

The core container of the No. 3 reactor was intact after the explosion, the government said, but it warned those still in the 20-km (13-mile) evacuation zone to stay indoors. The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), said 11 people had been injured in the blast.

Jiji news agency said seven people, six of them soldiers, were missing.

A Japanese official said before the blast 22 people had been confirmed to have suffered radiation contamination and up to 190 may have been exposed. Workers in protective clothing used hand-held scanners to check people arriving at evacuation centres.

U.S. warships and planes helping with relief efforts moved away from the coast temporarily because of low-level radiation. The U.S. Seventh Fleet described the move as precautionary.

Almost 2 million households were without power in the north, the government said. There were about 1.4 million without running water.

The government had warned of a possible explosion at the No. 3 reactor because of the buildup of hydrogen in the building housing the reactor. TV images showed smoke rising from the Fukushima facility, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

TEPCO had earlier halted injection of sea water into the reactor, resulting in a rise in radiation levels and pressure. The government had warned that an explosion was possible because of the buildup of hydrogen in the building housing the reactor.

An explosion blew the roof off the No. I reactor building on Saturday.

"I was having lunch at a restaurant when I saw the news of the explosion at unit 3," said Mikiko Amano, 55, who was at her home a few km from the plant. "It only raised my distrust in TEPCO... The company has been saying such a thing would not happen."

A badly wounded nation has seen whole villages and towns wiped off the map by a wall of water, triggering an international humanitarian effort of epic proportions.

 Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the situation at the 40-year-old Fukushima nuclear plant remained worrisome and that the authorities were doing their utmost to stop damage from spreading.

"We have rescued over 15,000 people and we are working to support them and others. We will do our utmost in rescue efforts again today," he said.

Officials confirmed on Sunday that three nuclear reactors north of Tokyo were at risk of overheating, raising fears of an uncontrolled radiation leak.

Engineers worked desperately to cool the fuel rods. If they fail, the containers that house the core could melt, or even explode, releasing radioactive material into the atmosphere.

DEATH TOLL "ABOVE 10,000"

Broadcaster NHK, quoting a police official, said more than 10,000 people may have been killed as the wall of water triggered by Friday's 8.9-magnitude quake surged across the coastline, reducing whole towns to rubble. It was the biggest to have hit the quake-prone country since it started keeping records 140 years ago.

"I would like to believe that there still are survivors," said Masaru Kudo, a soldier dispatched to Rikuzentakata, a nearly flattened town of 24,500 people in far-northern Iwate prefecture.

Kyodo said 80,000 people had been evacuated from a 20-km (12-mile) radius around the stricken nuclear plant, joining more than 450,000 other evacuees from quake and tsunami-hit areas in the northeast of the main island Honshu.

Some workers showed up on Monday at a factory in Kuji even though it had been destroyed. Asked why he was there, a young worker smoking a cigarette outside the skeletal remains said: "Because it's a work day."

"NOT ACCORDING TO THE BOOK"

The crisis now centres on the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex, where authorities said they had been forced to vent radioactive steam into the air to relieve reactor pressure.

The complex, which was due to be decommissioned in February but was given a new 10-year lease of life, was rocked by a first explosion on Saturday, which blew the roof off the No. 1 reactor building. The government had said further blasts would not necessarily damage the reactor vessels.

TEPCO said on Monday it had reported a rise in radiation levels at the complex to the government. On Sunday the level had risen slightly above what one is exposed to for a stomach X-ray, the company said.

Authorities had been pouring sea water in two of the reactors at the complex to cool them down.

 Nuclear experts said it was probably the first time in the industry's 57-year history that sea water has been used in this way, a sign of how close Japan may be to a major accident.

"Injection of sea water into a core is an extreme measure," Mark Hibbs of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "This is not according to the book."

The nuclear accident, the worst since Chernobyl in Soviet Ukraine in 1986, sparked criticism that authorities were ill-prepared and the threat that could pose to the country's nuclear power industry.

Thousands spent another freezing night huddled in blankets over heaters in emergency shelters along the northeastern coast, a scene of devastation after the quake sent a 10-metre (33-foot) wave surging through towns and cities in the Miyagi region, including its main coastal city of Sendai.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

As the country returned to work on Monday, markets began estimating the huge economic cost, with Japanese stocks plunging over 6 percent and the yen falling against the dollar.

Hiromichi Shirakawa, chief economist for Japan at Credit Suisse said in a note to clients that the economic loss will likely be around 14-15 trillion yen just to the region hit by the quake and tsuanmi.

Even that would put it above the commonly accepted cost of the 1995 Kobe quake which killed 6,000 people.

The earthquake has forced many firms to suspend production and shares in some of Japan's biggest companies tumbled on Monday, with Toyota Corp dropping 7.5 percent . Shares in Australian-listed uranium miners also dived.

"When we talk about natural disasters, we tend to see an initial sharp drop in production ... then you tend to have a V-shaped rebound. But initially everyone underestimates the damage," said Michala Marcussen, head of global economics at Societe Generale.

Ratings agency Moody's said on Sunday the fiscal impact of the earthquake would be temporary and have a limited play on whether it would downgrade Japan's sovereign debt.

Risk modelling company AIR Worldwide said insured losses from the earthquake could reach nearly $35 billion.

The Bank of Japan will debate on Monday whether to ease monetary policy further, sources said. The central bank earlier offered a combined 15 trillion yen ($183 billion) to the banking system earlier in the day to soothe market jitters.

Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said authorities were closely watching the yen after the currency initially rallied on expectations of repatriations by insurers and others. The currency later reversed course in volatile trading.

The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. It surpassed the Great Kanto quake of Sept. 1, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area.

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) — Survivors of Japan's devastating earthquake and tsunami huddled over heaters in emergency shelters on Saturday as rescue workers searched a mangled coastline of submerged homes, wrecked cars and stranded boats.







Aerial footage showed buildings and trains strewn like children's toys after powerful walls of seawater swamped areas around the worst-hit city of Sendai, about 130 km (80 miles) from the earthquake's epicenter.


"Everything is so hard now," said Kumi Onodera, a 34-year-old dental technician in Sendai, a port of 1 million people known as the "City of Trees" and cradled by dormant volcanoes.






Onodera said her ordeal the night before was "like a scene from a disaster movie".


"The road was moving up and down like a wave. Things were on fire and it was snowing," she said. "You really come to appreciate what you have in your everyday life."






Adding to the panic, radiation leaked from an unstable nuclear reactor in Fukushima prefecture, near Sendai.


In districts around Fukushima city, survivors lined up for drinking water in town centers, filling teapots and plastic containers. Japan deployed tens of thousands of Self-Defense Force officers to search for missing people.


In Iwanuma, not far from Sendai, nurses and doctors were rescued after spelling S.O.S. on the rooftop of a partially submerged hospital, one of many desperate scenes. In cities and towns across the northeast, worried relatives checked information boards on survivors at evacuation centers.






Hundreds of fishing vessels, many upturned, stood stranded in fields, pummeled by the 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami.


Japan's Kyodo News said about 300,000 people were evacuated nationwide, including 90,000 from areas near the nuclear plant, many seeking refuge in shelters, wrapped in blankets, some clutching each other sobbing.






Helicopters plucked survivors from an elementary school in Sendai. About 100 km (62 miles) further south in Koriyama, families slept in sleeping bags in a stadium.


At least 1,700 people were feared killed by the earthquake, the world's fifth-most powerful in the past century. As many as 3,400 buildings were either destroyed or badly damaged, Kyodo reported. About 200 fires had broken out.

This one-meter resolution satellite image of Fukushima Daiichii Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, right, was taken one day after an 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck the Oshika Peninsula on March 11, 2011. According to news reports, this is the largest earthquake to hit Japan in recorded history. Analysts believe the powerful earthquake moved Japan's main island eight feet, shifted the Earth on its axis four inches and unleashed a devastating tsunami. The image shows extensive destruction to buildings, vehicles and infrastructure. Entire regions have been flooded, swept away or reduced to ruin. The image was taken by GeoEye's IKONOS satellite at 10:36 a.m. (local time) on March 12, 2011 from 423 miles in space. The image on the left is a satellite images of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant taken by the GeoEye-1 satellite on November 15, 2009.
GeoEye satellite image / Reuters

Some other satellite photos:

The medical effects of a nuclear blast upon humans can be put into four categories:

Initial stage -- the first 1–2 weeks, in which are the greatest number of deaths, with 90% due to thermal injury and/or blast effects and 10% due to super-lethal radiation exposure



Intermediate stage -- from 3–8 weeks. The deaths in this period are from ionization radiation in the median lethal range


Late period -- lasting from 8–20 weeks. This period has some improvement in survivors' condition.




Delayed period -- from 20+ weeks. Characterized by “numerous complications, mostly related to healing of thermal and mechanical injuries coupled with infertility, sub-fertility and blood disorders caused by radiation.” Also, ionizing radiation from fallout can cause genetic effects, birth defects, cancer, cataracts and other effects in organs and tissue.

THE earthquake that struck Japan on Friday could be the most expensive in history.
While difficult to compare natural disasters in modern terms, the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, is widely considered the world’s most expensive natural disaster to date, with a $US100 billion ($99.3 billion) damage bill.

By comparison, the rebuilding effort in the wake of last month's Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand is currently estimated to cost as much as $NZ30 billion ($22 billion).
And closer to home, the Queensland Government said its floods and Cyclone Yasi are set to cost the state almost $1.5 billion, reported ABC News.



An earthquake in Chile was last year’s most expensive natural disaster in the world, with overall losses of $US30 billion ($29.7 billion) and insured losses of $US8 billion.

Economists say it is still too early to assess the full cost of the destruction from the 9-magnitude quake and the resulting tsunami that laid waste to the country's north-eastern coast and triggered an atomic emergency.
In an address to the nation, Prime Minister Naoto Kan warned that Japan was facing its biggest crisis since the end of World War II.

The death toll, officially still below 2000, is certain to rise substantially, with one hard-hit prefecture likely to have as many as 10,000 dead.

"The quake is expected to have considerable impact on a wide range of our country's economic activities," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.



Catastrophe modeling company Eqecat estimates that the cost of the earthquake, tsunami and fires will reach at least $US100 billion. This includes $US20 billion in damage to homes and $US40 billion to infrastructure.
Risk analysts AIR Worldwide said the earthquake alone would cost up to $US34.6 billion. It has not estimate losses from the tsunami or the damage to the nuclear plants.

Adding to the cost is the fact that the number of Japanese businesses and homeowners with earthquake insurance was as low as 14 per cent.

The 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, is the most expensive in history, with total losses of $US100 billion but insured losses of only $US3 billion.

The Insurance Information Institute predicted that the losses from this latest disaster would exceed this figure.
The Bank of Japan plans to pump "massive" funds into markets today in a bid to help them stabilise following the linked disasters, Dow Jones Newswires said overnight.

Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei index is meanwhile expected to tumble, with the index possibly breaking the psychologically important 10,000 level.

Many top Japanese firms have said they are suspending operations. Automakers Toyota, Nissan and Honda have announced the total suspension of production in Japan until at least Monday.

Sony Corp suspended production at its six plants in Miyagi Prefecture, which was hard hit by the quake, and neighbouring Fukushima Prefecture, it said, adding it has evacuated all employees there.

Yesterday Mitsubishi said it would halt production at all three of its domestic plants today and tomorrow. Suzuki motors also said it was suspending all domestic plant operations today.

The immediate prospects for Japan's atomic power industry are a key concern following a radioactive leak and an explosion Saturday at the ageing Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant located 250 kilometres (160 miles) northeast of Tokyo.

Japan's nuclear industry provides around a third of the nation's power needs, and the shutdown of reactors will lead to a shortfall in electricity supply that will make power outages necessary, the Government warned.


AFP