TOKYO—Japan on Monday expanded the evacuation zone around a crippled nuclear plant that has been spewing high levels of radiation, as a strong aftershock again rattled the northeastern region that has been devastated by the March 11 earthquake and a tsunami.
A powerful 6.6-magnitude aftershock caused buildings to sway in Tokyo, triggered a brief tsunami alert and forced the evacuation of workers battling to avert a catastrophic meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station.
Earlier on Monday, sirens wailed across Japan as the nation observed a minute’s silence to remember the estimated 28,000 people killed in the disaster exactly a month ago.
PRAYER OFFERING Two-year-old Ayaka (center) and family members pray for her missing grandmother and great-grandmother a month after the tsunami struck Ishinomaki in Miyagi prefecture, Japan. AFP
People bowed their heads and wept as they gathered for ceremonies at 2:46 p.m., the exact moment when the 9-magnitude quake struck and spawned a monster tsunami that brought widespread destruction to the northeast coast and unleashed the worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.
The latest temblor hit at 5:16 p.m. (0816 GMT), as Prime Minister Naoto Kan prepared to deliver a live address to the nation. Kan postponed his speech and urged emergency workers to do all they could to save lives in the aftermath of the aftershock.
The aftershock’s epicenter was located 81 kilometers south of Fukushima City and 163 km northeast of Tokyo at a depth of 10 km. Authorities issued a tsunami alert but later lifted it.
Workers battling to contain the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex were evacuated after the aftershock, which briefly knocked out power to the plant’s three most severely damaged reactors.
“The company ordered workers to withdraw and stay in a quake-proof building,” said a spokesperson for the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO). “We don’t know how many workers were involved.”
Tohoku Electric Power Co. said power supply also had been cut to some 220,000 households in the city of Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, and other towns.
Media reports said a landslide engulfed cars with several people inside.
A 7.1-magnitude tremor on April 7—just one of thousands of aftershocks to hit the traumatized country—killed at least two people and cut electricity across a huge area of northern Japan.
Expanded zone
In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said that the government would order parts of five villages and cities outside the current 20-km exclusion zone to prepare to evacuate.
Edano said these areas were feared to be receiving exposure to radiation equivalent to at least 20 millisieverts a year, which could be harmful to human health over the long term.
Evacuation orders will come within a month, he said.
Five other areas may be told to evacuate if there is a worsening of the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex.
“This measure is not an order for you to evacuate or take actions immediately,” he said. “We arrived at this decision by taking into account the risks of remaining in the area in the long term.”
The Japanese government had so far refused to widen the zone, despite being urged to do so by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Countries such as the United States and Australia also have advised their citizens to stay 80 km away from the plant.
But Edano said the chance of a large-scale radiation leak from the Fukushima plant had, in fact, decreased.
Fukushima plant
At the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, workers have said they are no closer to restoring vital cooling systems at the plant’s six reactors. They have been battling to contain leaks of highly radioactive water from the facility.
They have pumped water into the reactors to cool the nuclear fuel rods, but that has produced harmful runoff of at least 60,000 tons of contaminated water, and workers have been forced to pump lower-level radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean.
TEPCO president Masataka Shimizu visited Fukushima on Monday and apologized for the nuclear emergency engulfing the prefecture.
“I offer my personal apology from the bottom of my heart once again to the people in Fukushima prefecture and residents near the nuclear plant for having imposed such awful physical and mental burdens,” he said.
Shimizu had wanted to go to the offices of the Fukushima prefecture government in the hope of meeting Governor Yuhei Sato, but no meeting took place.
Ripped open
“My chest has been ripped open by the suffering and pain that this disaster has caused the people of our prefecture,” Sato, who has refused to meet the boss of the embattled utility, said during Monday’s ceremonies. “I have no words to express my sorrow.”
“We will not let the tsunami defeat us,” Mayor Masanori Yamamoto of Miyako, which was overrun by 40-meter waves, said in a message broadcast across the city through emergency speakers on Monday.
In the port city famous for its salmon trade, about 400 people have been confirmed dead and 682 remain missing. Almost 3,500 people remain in evacuation centers after losing their homes.
“If we keep up our courage and hope,” Yamamoto said, “Miyako will surely recover.”
Political fallout
Concern at Japan’s inability to contain its nuclear crisis is mounting with Kan’s ruling party suffering embarrassing losses in local elections on Sunday.
Voters vented their anger at the government’s handling of the nuclear and humanitarian crisis, with Kan’s ruling Democratic Party of Japan losing nearly 70 seats in local elections.
In a statement on behalf of the people of Japan, Kan expressed “heartfelt thanks” for assistance and support from 130 nations around the world.
“Japan will certainly repay, through our contributions to the international community, the cordial assistance we have received from around the world,” he said.
The unpopular Kan was already under pressure to step down before March 11, but analysts say he is unlikely to be forced out during the crisis, set to drag on for months.
“The great disaster was a double tragedy for Japan. The first tragedy was the catastrophe caused by the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear accident. The other misfortune was that the disaster resulted in prolonging Prime Minister Kan’s time in office,” Sankei newspaper said in an editorial on Monday.
2016 Olympics
Proposals to lift the long shadow cast by Japan’s disasters, however, emerged over the weekend.
Tokyo’s nationalistic governor, who was reelected on Sunday, said the vast city would bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics as part of efforts to boost recovery.
Shintaro Ishihara said Tokyo—which lost out to Rio de Janeiro in the race to host the 2016 Olympics—“can start raising our hand now” for the Games. Reports from Agence France-Presse, Reuters, New York Times News Service and Associated Press