The earthquake of 8.9 on the Richter scale on Friday Japan, killing at least 800 thousand victims, dead or missing, and at least 300 000 have been evacuated, according to the National Police Agency, quoted by the Japanese agency Kyodo.
Meanwhile, the U.S. geological survey reported about 240 aftershocks on Friday, 27 of which have exceeded magnitude 6.0 on the Richter scale.
The recent aftershock occurred at 3:19 am local time Sunday (17:19 GMT Saturday) in Pacific waters off the eastern coast of the island of Honshu.
Only in Miyagi Prefecture, the hardest hit by the quake, 687 dead were counted between 200 and 300 unidentified bodies, and about 650 missing persons.
addition, the National Police Agency 300 000 evaduados counted in five prefectures, including about 80 000 residents of the Fukushima nuclear plant, where there was a radiation leak alert.
The Defense Ministry reported on its part to be ready to mobilize 50 000 elements for rescue operations, specializing in nuclear accidents and to assist the evacuation of the nearby population.
According to provisional counts of firefighters, some three thousand 400 buildings were destroyed, and the Ministry of Welfare reported 181 affected facilities.
The explosion of a nuclear plant is the worst such accident since Chernobyl (Ukraine) in 1986. There is fear of radiation level.
The continued lack of electricity at Japanese nuclear plant in Fukushima, where on Saturday there was a blast, poses the danger of "a serious nuclear accident," said technical director of Safety English Nuclear Security Council (CSN), Isabel Mellado.
Mellado said the earthquake of 8.9 magnitude on the Richter scale that shook Japan on Friday left without power at this power plant, which has six boiling water reactors.
The subsequent tsunami "damaged diesel generators that supply electricity when the plant ceases to receive power from outside," he said. According to the expert this fact "left the plant in a difficult situation" because "that would not have brought electricity to activate the security systems" of the plant.
As a result, "the discharge of the nuclear reactor pressure has been increasing pressure in the containment building (the enclosure surrounding the reactor) and to maintain the values \u200b\u200bwithin the limits, have had to make small discharges of radioactivity.
However, the expert stressed that the latest data of radioactivity in the CSN has been reported "no were of concern ", but clarified" that are not recent data, but the indices that had for several hours. "
Still, Mellado Fukushima pointed out that if" continues many more hours without power, still losing coolant continues down its water level, this would result in cooling of the project would be degraded and would be a merger fuel.
"So yes it would result in a serious accident," says the expert.
The Nuclear Safety Council has set up a monitoring group of the nuclear accident in Japan, and its managers and technicians are gathered from early on Saturday in the emergency room of CSN.
plant radiation emitted every hour that a person absorbs in a year
The company Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the plant in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power, said four workers had fractures and bruises from the explosion.
The images broadcast on Japanese television showed that walls of the reactor facility collapsed and had been standing only a metal frame. Several columns of smoke rose from the plant in Fukushima, about 30 kilometers from the city of Iwaki.
"We are trying to analyze what is behind the explosion," said government spokesman Yukio Edan. For this reason, people within a radius of 10 kilometers had to evacuate quickly.
The problem started in Unit 1 of the plant after the powerful earthquake and subsequent tsunami that suspended electricity in the area. According
Edan, after the explosion did not increase levels radiation around the plant in Fukushima Dai-ichi, contrary decreased. The official did not explain how this phenomenon occurred, but added that the explosion pressure decreased.
However, any increase in radiation levels in the atmosphere almost could increase cancer rates in the long term. The authorities intend to distribute iodine, a substance that helps protect against thyroid cancer.
The explosion was caused by the interaction of hydrogen with oxygen out of reactor. The hydrogen is formed when superheated fuel rods to make contact water is poured over them to cool the core and prevent it melting.
"(Experts in Japan) are working hard to find a solution to cool the core, and we learned that have begun to inject sea water," said Mark Hibbs, Nuclear Policy Program for Carnegie Legacy International Peace.
"This action is indicative of the seriousness of the problem and the initiative of the Japanese to resort to unusual and improvised solutions to cool the reactor core," he said.
Authorities had said that radiation had reached high levels before the explosion. A time, the plant produced per hour of radiation a person absorbs ambient normally in a year.
The explosion was preceded by a breath of white smoke, which condensed and became a big cloud that surrounded the entire facility in Fukushima.
The quake disrupted power supply in large areas of Japan, which has sought an increase in shipments of energy from Russia, said Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
Pressure has been building up in the reactor and is now twice the normal. The Agency for Nuclear and Industrial Safety in Japan told reporters on Saturday I was releasing "radioactive steam" to decrease the pressure, while some officials said radiation levels measured in the area.
The wind in the region is weak and heads northeast to the sea, the Meteorological Agency said.
In 1986, the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded, caught fire and fired a radiation cloud that covered a large part of Europe .
With information from Notimex, AP, EFE and Semana.com
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