Huffington Post - AOL News - May 19, 2011

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has released a dramatic series of photos that show the March 11 tsunami battering the now-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The photos, which first appeared on TEPCO's website Thursday, saw a colossal surge of water breaching the seawall guarding the plant as well as the flood inundating some of the plant's buildings, leaving several cars bobbing in the water, Voice of America is reporting.

The tsunami was triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake which struck off Japan's northeast coast.

View dramatic photos of the tsunami, courtesy of TEPCO, in the link below:

Experts have warned of a potentially dangerous radiation leak if Japanproceeds with plans to flood a damaged reactor containment vessel at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The facility's operator has admitted uranium fuel rods in the No 1 reactor partially melted after being fully exposed because of the 11 March tsunami.

Chubu Electric asked to 'swiftly consider' government's request

CBC News - Posted: May 6, 2011 7:38 AM ET

Japan has urged a power company to suspend all three reactors at a coastal nuclear plant while a seawall and other structures are built to ensure a major earthquake or tsunami does not cause a second radiation crisis.

The move came Friday as the government is conducting a safety review of all Japan's 54 nuclear reactors after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that left more than 25,000 people dead and missing on the northeast coast.

The Hamaoka nuclear plant just 100 metres off the Pacific coast in central Japan is the only one so far where the government has asked that operations be halted until the utility can implement safety measures.

Chubu Electric Power Co. said in a statement it will "swiftly consider" the government's request. The statement gave no further details. Government officials estimate the work could last two years.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said at a news conference Friday evening he requested the shutdown for safety reasons, citing experts' forecast of a 90 per cent probability of a quake with magnitude of 8.0 or higher striking central Japan within 30 years.

AP - by Elaine Kurtenbach and Mari Yamaguchi - April 20, 2011

TOKYO -- Japanese authorities may for the first time strictly enforce their evacuation zone around a crippled nuclear plant, citing concerns Wednesday over radiation risks for residents returning to check on their homes.

About 70,000-80,000 people were living in the 10 towns and villages within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami wrecked its power and cooling systems, setting off the worst nuclear power crisis since the 1986 catastrophe at Chernobyl.

Virtually all of the residents left when the government ordered the area evacuated on March 12, but some occasionally have returned and police cannot legally block them. There currently is no penalty for violating the zone.

"We are considering setting up 'caution areas' as an option for effectively limiting entry" to the zone, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan will meet with local officials and evacuees to discuss the plans during a visit to the affected region Thursday, Edano said.

AP - AOL News - by Mari Yamaguchi - April 18, 2011

TOKYO -- Readings Monday from robots that entered two crippled buildings at Japan's tsunami-flooded nuclear plant for the first time in more than a month displayed a harsh environment still too radioactive for workers to enter.

Nuclear officials said the radiation data for Unit 1 and Unit 3 at the tsunami-flooded Fukushima Dai-ichi plant - collected by U.S.-made robots that look like drafting lamps on treads - do not alter plans for stabilizing the complex by year's end under a "road map" released by the plant operator Sunday.

With the public growing increasingly frustrated at the slow response to the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crises, parliament grilled Prime Minister Naoto Kan and officials from plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co.

"You should be bowing your head in apology. You clearly have no leadership at all," Masashi Waki, a lawmaker from the opposition Liberal Democratic Party, shouted at Kan.

"I am sincerely apologizing for what has happened," Kan said, stressing that the government was doing all it could to handle the unprecedented disasters.

TEPCO's president, Masataka Shimizu, looked visibly ill at ease as lawmakers heckled and taunted him.

AP - by Mari Yamaguchi - April 16, 2011

TOKYO -- Levels of radioactivity have risen sharply in seawater near a tsunami-crippled nuclear plant in northern Japan, signaling the possibility of new leaks at the facility, the government said Saturday.

The announcement came after a magnitude-5.9 earthquake jolted Japan on Saturday morning, hours after the country's nuclear safety agency ordered plant operators to beef up their quake preparedness systems to prevent a recurrence of the nuclear crisis.

There were no reports of damage from the earthquake, and there was no risk of a tsunami similar to the one that struck the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant March 11 after a magnitude-9.0 earthquake, causing Japan's worst-ever nuclear plant disaster.

Since the tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling systems, workers have been spraying massive amounts of water on the overheated reactors. Some of that water, contaminated with radiation, leaked into the Pacific. Plant officials said they plugged that leak on April 5 and radiation levels in the sea dropped.

View Map of Radiation Measurements by Greenpeace team in a larger map