Japanese authorities are in a state of high alert awaiting the status of nuclear power Fukushima I and the effects of the devastating earthquake and tsunami of last Friday, which claimed over the life of more than 1,200 people, according to official figures. For the Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, the country is "the most serious crisis since World War II" and has urged its citizens to "build a new Japan."
Khan has warned that the chaotic situation experienced by Japanese will take several days because the power supply will soon re-established in many areas and may even cause new blackouts. One of the first acts of the Executive has been authorize companies Tokyo Electric Power and Tohoku Electric Power to make power cuts of up to three hours a day, starting tomorrow, to ensure supply in areas of the northeast. Khan has admitted that the situation was "worrying" and warned that recovery will not be easy "but that Japan achieved" made in the past. "
One of the places of greatest concern to authorities is the nuclear plant in Fukushima I, 240 kilometers from Tokyo, where there is a risk of producing a new explosion similar to yesterday at the nuclear plant. The authorities also ruled that the initiation of a core meltdown process in reactors 1 and 3. Naoto Kan has admitted that the situation is serious but is not comparable to the disaster that occurred in the city Ukrainian Chernobyl in 1986. "We have released radiation into the air, but there is no data which suggest that it has released a large amount," the Japanese prime minister. "This is totally different from the Chernobyl accident. We are working to prevent damage from spreading," he added
Earlier, the minister spokesman Yukio Edan, explained that the explosion may occur in the secondary containment vessel of the reactor 3 due to an accumulation of hydrogen, as happened yesterday in the reactor 1. Nor is possible that had triggered a meltdown process in reactors 1 and 3. "We believe there is a possibility that a partial core meltdown occurred. It is within the reactor. We can not see. In any case, we assume that the merger has taken place, "Edan said about the number 1 reactor of the plant." On the reactor number 3, we assume also that there is a possibility that another meltdown taking place while we take steps to prevent "Japanese spokesman said the minister.
intensity 9 earthquake
Emergency crews are still working in the area to try to cool the three reactors at the plant by injecting water from sea. 3 reactor began to be affected by problems by the same fault that caused an explosion yesterday at No. 1. Earlier, the plant operator reported that the reactor 3 was emitting radiation above the safety limit and that there was an "emergency situation" because the water level has dropped to expose three meters of fuel rods. The Government says there is no danger to people but the accident has claimed its first victims. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today reported that a worker died in an accident with a crane, four others wounded yesterday by the explosion yesterday at the nuclear plant and three others wounded in other incidents.
The earthquake on Friday, with an intensity that this morning (English time) Japan has been revised upward to a maganitud 9 on the Richter scale, was too much for the central Fukushima I, owned by Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) and whose first reactor opened in 1971. Reactors 1, 2, and 3 stopped automatically by the earthquake. The other three of the huge nuclear complex on the coast were in maintenance.
By fall the electrical system, also turned off the cooling system of the plant. In a nuclear heat must be removed continuously from the reactor, which is achieved with various systems of water circulation. After the earthquake, were put in place emergency diesel generators, there are usually four to pump ground-water cooling. But an hour after the tsunami struck and disabled the emergency cooling also.
A nuclear plant is like a Russian doll: The reactor vessel of metal, surrounded by the containment building, with concrete walls and steel-which, in turn, is covered by the reactor building in this case a bucket of cement.
With poor cooling, "in the kernel started up the pressure" by the accumulation of radioactive gases, as explained by the physical nuclear Manuel Fernández Ordóñez. The plant began opening relief valves to release gases into the containment. "By making a simple analogy, imagine that the reactor core is like a pressure cooker. If the pressure gets too high you have to open the valve, releasing gas into the kitchen, which is the containment building, but not to the abroad, "said Fernandez Ordonez.
Still, the pressure in the containment building continued to rise. "Containment is at a lower pressure than the outside so that if there is a crack, do not leave anything out. The normal pressure is 400 kilopascals within and outside is 1,000. In the central pressure rose to 600 and then 850. So they decided to open and get to the outside the contaminated gas. But it always comes out is filtered radioactive steam.
first Japanese authorities ordered evacuations from towns within a radius of three kilometers of the plant, then 10 and finally 20 km. Gauges reflected radiation outside the spill. At four in the morning (Japan time) the registered foreign natural radiation microsievert 0.07 per hour. At 15.29, the survey was of 1,015 microsievert / hour, 14,500 times, and then began to decline. At half past ten on Sunday (two-thirty early in the English Peninsula), the operator of the plant to the agency Kyodo reported that the reactor number 3 had begun to emit radiation above safety levels, reaching 882 per hour microsiervert.
fatal explosion
If the information came from Fukushima was confusing all worsened to 15.36 (07.36 CET the English), when an explosion rocked the plant and saw the smoke for miles. The specter of Chernobyl went around the world. The Japanese Nuclear Safety Agency (NISA) said later that the explosion had not affected the containment building, although it had been part of the roof and wall of the reactor building. Japan claimed that the explosion of the hydrogen released exploded. In a first assessment, the International Atomic Energy Agency has announced that a technician has died and 11 others injured after an explosion in central Fukushima I. Citing Japanese authorities, the agency specifies that a technician was killed and four injured in an accident with a crane.
occurred during times inaccurate information about the cooling, if TEPCO had managed to connect, if you had gone ... The director Radiation Protection Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), Juan Carlos Lentijo, summed up the evening: "The situation is dire but the unit is holding. That yes, they have to refrigerate it or can get out of control". Radioactive discharges Lentijo justified: "Better a nice little discharge is to have a dramatic failure."
Five hours after the explosion, the Japanese authorities attempted a desperate option: nuclear cooling seawater directly and boric acid, a substance that absorbs neutrons. Japanese government spokesman, Yukio Edan, said that this was a method of "unprecedented" and announced that they were preparing to deliver iodine to the population. "Iodine is an emergency protective measure against possible radioactive cloud, which has iodine. The iodine saturated thyroid gland and prevents the radioactive iodine to act," said Lentijo. Kyodo news agency reported that three people in hospital who had received high doses of radiation. Under NISA, the number of people exposed to radiation at Fukushima I could be between 70 and 160.
atomic energy Criticism
Apart from the implications for Japan, Fukushima affect expected accident the nuclear industry in the world. With the fading memory of Chernobyl, the nuclear lobby was getting to turn public opinion in favor of the nuclear option as a way to reduce oil dependency. Domínguez rejected that will affect the future: "In an unprecedented disaster headquarters worked perfectly. What it has failed as expected." Another industry source used another argument: "Trains have also been lost in the tsunami and no one would think that affects the railway."
Environmentalists charged itself against nuclear power. Jan Beranek, head of Greenpeace's nuclear campaign, summed up: "The industry says that these events can not occur in modern reactors (...), but nuclear power is vulnerable to the potentially lethal combination of human error, design flaws and natural disasters." _____________
MORTGAGE OF RECONSTRUCTION DROWNING THE COUNTRY
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when giant waves no longer reach the sea, control of nuclear accidents and emergency services have held all the humanitarian aid will start counting the damage to the Japanese economy. Japan government members, political parties and analysts are still stunned by the magnitude of the disaster, so their estimates of economic costs are preliminary.
In what is certain is that the reconstruction will require huge amounts of public investment. For reference, analysts point out that the Kobe earthquake in 1995, was a cost the State of 100,000 million dollars and was an earthquake much more benign than today. The rescue, rebuilding thousands of homes destroyed, buried roads and destroyed public and private buildings, can hold an 8% gross domestic product (GDP) of the Rising Sun, according to analysts quoted by Agence France Presse . The Japan Government has already signed a fund of 5,000 million euros to tackle the disaster, which could double in coming weeks, according to sources.
Japan has just been overtaken by China and has been as a third world economy. Think of a more public investment is a serious problem for this country, which has the dubious honor of being the most indebted of all developed. Before the catastrophe the debt reached 200% of GDP and a deficit of 10%. This debt is estimated at 12.1 billion dollars (8.8 billion euros), representing almost 15 times that Spain possesses.
The coming days are expected to edit reports analysts increasing debt projections for the end of 2011 and 2012. Bad news, sure. To find lenders, Japan will be forced to raise interest rates on debt, which will mean more money to be paid off and less to the economy, another obstacle to growth. In addition, rating agencies Moody's and Standard & Poor's just down in January and February, respectively, a level the country note. The yen has fallen so far, by the intervention of the Bank of Japan, which said it will continue to support its currency.
From the optimism, some economists argue that after the tragedies and subsequent investment, the economy is recovering ahead of schedule. However, what is unknown is how will this affect the morale of the citizens, which is directly reflected in consumption. The problem is that the center-left government is losing social leadership, making it harder the task to succeed.
After the bursting of the housing bubble and financial crisis in the nineties, the state injected trillions of yen to recover the economy. And I was getting, if uneven. The 2010 annual GDP rose by 3.9%, although the last quarter showed a contraction. Monetary policy has little leeway because interest rates are at 0% for some time.
"No one can doubt that it will implement a Keynesian stimulus package, at least to rebuild the city of Sendai and its environs," said Marcus Noland, Peterson Institute for Economics Washington, co-author in 2001 of a book on relations between Japan and the United States, according to Bloomberg. "The reconstruction of Sendai could be an opportunity to create a growth pole in northern Japan, which has lost a lot of people in recent years," Noland consoles.
The tsunami has affected the energy sector, telecommunications, infrastructure, steel and fishing. The region of Miyagi and surrounding areas including industrial and manufacturing areas, chemical plants and electronics.
Another major impact will the insurers, who must assume the payments even at the risk of bankruptcy. In the worst-hit area, within a radius of three kilometers, the company Air wordlwide valued at U.S. $ 24,000 million of insured property, Reuters reported. In the four provinces most affected by the earthquake, is insured for 300,000 million dollars.
Insurers, which began to fall on the Stock Exchange last Friday, say that these figures do not represent "a loss equivalent to the enterprise." Typically, these companies reinsure their risks, including the two nuclear power plants affected, with competitors from around the world to avoid bankruptcy in situations like the present. That's why titles like Swiss reinsurance, Hannover Re and Munich Re lost more than 4% at the meeting Friday.
"nothing like this ever happened before, so we're in uncharted territory," admitted an official of the firm Air Worldwide, which analyzes these claims for insurers. According to Reuters, anticipated financial analysts on Friday that the earthquake damage could rise to 15,000 million, which would make him the most expensive in the history of the insurance industry.
For individual companies, the hardest hit were the automotive, where Japan is a major global player. The Big Three automakers Toyota, Nissan and Honda announced that tomorrow would paralyze all its plants across problems supply.
In the Kanto region, including Tokyo, which represents 40% of GDP, have been affected oil refineries Cosmo Oil Company. It has also affected Japan's nuclear subsidiary, which guarantees between 25% and 30% of electricity in Japan.
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