By Suvendrini Kakuchi
"There is a dire need for a real time radiation monitoring network to be set up in areas affected by the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power plant," Atsuto Suzuki, head of the high-energy accelerator research organisation at Tsukuba University, explained. "This is where our expertise can begin to play a role."

FUKUSHIMA, Japan, Apr 7, 2011 (IPS) - My decision to visit Fukushima - the area worst hit by the massive quake, tsunami and nuclear power accident on Mar. 11 - was taken one afternoon last week after a long meeting with scientists.
The invitation to accompany the scientists on a private fact-finding mission to Fukushima was irresistible. The scientists and engineers who gathered that day, had, for decades, harboured misgivings over reactor safety design and policies and were active in the ongoing debate over the future of nuclear energy in Japan.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 5, 2011) — The huge tsunami triggered by the 9.0 Tohoku Earthquake destroyed coastal towns near Sendai in Japan, washing such things as houses and cars into the ocean. Projections of where this debris might head have been made by Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Maximenko has developed a model based on the behavior of drifting buoys deployed over years in the ocean for scientific purposes.

The debris first spreads out eastward from the Japan Coast in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. In a year, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument will see pieces washing up on its shores; in two years, the remaining Hawaiian islands will see some effects; in three years, the plume will reach the US West Coast, dumping debris on Californian beaches and the beaches of British Columbia, Alaska, and Baja California. The debris will then drift into the famous North Pacific Garbage Patch, where it will wander around and break into smaller and smaller pieces. In five years, Hawaii shores can expect to see another barrage of debris that is stronger and longer-lasting than the first one. Much of the debris leaving the North Pacific Garbage Patch ends up on Hawaii's reefs and beaches.

The Yomiuri Shimbun

A supplementary budget the government and the Democratic Party of Japan are crafting for postquake reconstruction likely will total more than 3 trillion yen, sources said Wednesday.

The extra budget, the first for this fiscal year, would be used mainly for disposing of rubble and constructing temporary housing for survivors of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

The government and the ruling party have decided not to issue government bonds to finance the budget, the sources said.

Instead, they are considering using 2.5 trillion yen allocated to shoulder 50 percent of basic pension benefits and could revise policies from the DPJ's manifesto for the 2009 House of Representatives election, such as making expressways toll-free, according to the sources.

The government intends to enact the supplemental budget late this month or early next month after holding talks with opposition parties.

But some members in both the ruling and opposition camps have criticized the funding plans.

Initially, the government was considering an extra budget of more than 1 trillion yen, but later revised the amount upward in the face of the enormous damage to areas affected by the disaster.

The Yomiuri Shimbun
April 07

Production of various medicines at pharmaceutical factories in the Tohoku and northern Kanto regions is at a standstill because of damage caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Pharmaceutical companies are trying to import medicines in case domestic supply falls short, and doctors have been asked to avoid issuing long-term prescriptions, to help stretch the limited stock of certain medicines.

One of the most serious shortages is of levothyroxine sodium, a hypothyroidism medicine. Aska Pharmaceutical Co. accounts for 98 percent of the domestic supply of Thyradin S, a branded version of levothyroxine sodium, but damage suffered by the company's factory in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, has paralyzed operations there.

About 300,000 patients nationwide are believed to be taking Thyradin S, and a lack of the medicine will pose a direct risk to those patients' lives.

A number of professional associations, including Japanese Medical and Dental Practitioners for the Improvement of Medical Care, have asked the central government to support emergency imports of levothyroxine sodium.

Tokyo, April 4 (Reuters): Japan has asked nuclear superpower Russia to send a special radiation treatment ship used to decommission nuclear submarines to help in its fight to contain the world’s worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl, Japanese media said late on Monday.       

Japanese engineers at the Fukushima nuclear plant have been forced to release radioactive wastewater into the sea. At the same time they are resorting to desperate measures to contain the damage, such as using bath salts to try to locate the source of leaks at the crippled complex 240km north of Tokyo.       

Three weeks after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and massive tsunami hit northeast Japan, sending some of the plant’s reactors into partial meltdown, engineers are no closer to regaining control of the power plant or stopping radioactive leaks.       

The quake and tsunami left nearly 28,000 people dead or missing and Japan’s northeast coast a wreck.