FUKUSHIMA: Japan battled a feared meltdown of two reactors at a quake-hit nuclear plant Sunday, as the full horror began emerging of the disaster on the ravaged northeast coast where more than 10,000 were feared dead. An explosion at the ageing Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant blew apart the building housing one of its reactors Saturday, a day after the biggest quake ever recorded in Japan unleashed a monster tsunami. The atomic emergency escalated Sunday as crews struggled to prevent overheating at a second reactor where the cooling system has also failed, and the government warned that it too could suffer a blast. Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the situation at the stricken power plant remained grave, and that Japan was facing its worst crisis since the end of World War II – which left the defeated country in ruins. “The current situation of the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear plants is in a way the most severe crisis in the 65 years since World War II,” Kan said in a televised national address. “Whether we Japanese can overcome this crisis depends on each of us,” said the premier, who was wearing an emergency services suit. Kan said the shutdown of reactors across the quake zone would entail rolling power outages nationwide, and urged citizens to conserve energy. Japan's nuclear industry provides about a third of its power needs. Top government spokesman Yukio Edano said it was highly likely that a partial meltdown had occurred at the plant's number one reactor, and a second was possible at the plant 250 km northeast of Tokyo. “There is the possibility of an explosion in the number three reactor,” he said, while voicing confidence that it would withstand the blast as the first reactor had the day before. A meltdown occurs when a reactor core overheats and causes damage to the facility, potentially unleashing radiation into the environment. Edano said that some radiation had escaped in the accident, but that the levels released into the air were so far not high enough to affect human health. Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power later said that despite continuing efforts, it had not managed to ensure the tops of the fuel rods in the two troubled reactors remained submerged. Exposed rods are an indication of a possible meltdown. A cooling pump at another plant 120 km from Tokyo, the Tokai No. 2, had failed, but a back-up was working and cooling the reactor, a plant spokesman said early Monday. Five Saudis rescued A helicopter sent on the orders of Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Minister of Foreign Affairs, arrived in Tokyo Sunday with five out of eight Saudi nationals who had been trapped in Sindai, the city hardest hit by Friday's earthquake in Japan, adds Majid Al-Suqairi. The other three Saudis in the area are expected to arrive in Tokyo within the next 24 hours. Abdul Aziz Turkistani, Saudi Ambassador to Japan, told Okaz/Saudi Gazette by telephone that he and other officials from the embassy met the five upon their arrival, and said that among them were a Saudi woman and her child. “Once they arrived they were taken to a place already prepared to offer them everything they needed,” Turkistani said by telephone. “Prince Saud ordered that all needs be provided for and that all Saudi subjects in Japan be looked after in every way possible.” A new operations room in Osaka to the south of Tokyo has been set up to identify, locate and contact all Saudis in Japan, he said. “The embassy is working to secure their return home to the Kingdom for those that want to,” he said. “The current period is an official holiday in Japan.” Ghalib Al-Enizi, Hussein Al-Amri and Zaki Al-Hakami, three of the Saudis who arrived in Tokyo on the helicopter Sunday, thanked King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, for its efforts to ensure their safety. “We'd also like to thank the Kingdom's embassy for its direct and continuous help in the time since the earthquake,” they said. Meanwhile, the United Nations said a total of 590,000 people had been evacuated in the quake and tsunami disaster, including 210,000 living near the Fukushima nuclear plants. The colossal 8.9 magnitude tremor sent waves of churning mud and debris racing over towns and farmland in Japan's northeast, destroying everything in its path and reducing swathes of countryside to a swampy wasteland. The immense force of the quake moved Honshu - the main Japanese island - 2.4 meters, the US Geological Survey said. In the small port town of Minamisanriku alone some 10,000 people were unaccounted for - more than half the population of the town, which was practically erased, public broadcaster NHK reported. The police chief in Miyagi prefecture - where Minamisanriku is situated - said the death toll was certain to exceed 10,000 in his region. The national police agency said the confirmed death toll now stood at 1,597. But in a rare piece of good news, a man who was swept 15 km out to sea along with his house by the tsunami was plucked to safety Sunday after being spotted clinging to a piece of the roof. Hiromitsu Shinkawa, 60, was discovered by a Japanese destroyer and transported by helicopter to hospital, where he was in surprisingly good health after his miracle rescue. But as the world's third-largest economy struggled to assess the full extent of the disaster, groups of hundreds of bodies were being found along the shattered coastline. In the city of Fukushima, about 80 km northwest of the stricken nuclear plant, people were panic-buying at supermarkets and petrol stations had run dry. Many survivors were left without water, electricity, fuel or enough food, as authorities appeared overwhelmed by the monumental scale of the disaster. With ports, airports, highways and manufacturing plants shut down, the government predicted “considerable impact on a wide range of our country's economic activities”. Leading risk analysis firm AIR Worldwide said the quake alone would exact an economic toll estimated at between $14.5 billion and $34.6 billion without taking into account the effects of the tsunami.
