Japanese authorities began testing for radiation in seawater near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Tuesday, but officials stressed that the elevated levels are no cause for worry

Within this article:

"...Jun Misono of Tokyo’s Marine Ecology Research Institute said that while radioactive iodine breaks down relatively quickly, cesium is more persistent and can accumulate in marine animals, such as fish. “We need to carefully monitor the amount of radiation that continues to be emitted and evaluate the impacts,” he told national broadcaster NHK."

For More Information:

Levels of radioactive iodine are found to be about double the safe levels for children under age of 1. Black smoke billows from a reactor at the stricken Japanese nuclear plant.

For More Information:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-tokyo-water-20110324,0,7951826.story

Bad weather returns to the worst affected areas affecting the distribution of goods.  See  United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Relief Web 

Summary Link to March 21 # 10 update attached.

The report also quotes World Bank saying it will take Japan 5 years to rebuild what was destroyed by the big quakes and tsunamis.

It also adds to our growing directory of useful links:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Poteat, Linda 
Date: 2011/3/21
Subject: JAPAN: Message from Japanese NGO Counterparts to INGOs
To: 

World health officials warn of the dangerous cumulative effects from eating food contaminated by radiation leaking from Japan's crippled nuclear plant. One Japanese restaurant in Taiwan is serving up radiation gauges alongside its meals.

For more information:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fgw-japan-quake-food-20110322,0,100029.story

Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Update 03/19/2011

March 19, 2011

Countermeasures, Speeches, Statements, and Blog

(Link to official website below)

http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/index-e.html 

(Link to .pdf file)

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/fullmaps_sa.nsf/luFullMap/B210036541A6D6CD8525785400721ABB/$File/map.pdf?OpenElement

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/RKRR-8EYSAN?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=jpn 

Japan has raised the severity rating of its nuclear disaster, as firefighters continue efforts to cool highly radioactive fuel rods at a nuclear reactor complex crippled by last week's earthquake and tsunami.

Japan on Friday increased the severity of the crisis at the Fukushima site from 4 to 5 on a 7-point international nuclear event scale. 

Firefighters are dousing water on damaged reactor buildings with powerful hoses.  But they have to limit their time inside the complex due to the high radiation levels. 

Japanese engineers also are extending an emergency power cable to the nuclear reactor complex.  A steady supply of power could enable workers at the Fukushima plant to get water pumps working again. 

For More Information:

Winds passing over Japan's stricken nuclear power plant are reaching California and moving inland, but health experts say the plumes pose no danger to the public.

There is mounting alarm in the public's mind as news continues of explosions and loss of reactor cooling water at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, and its intensely radioactive fuel rods.

But winds from Japan have been blowing eastward across the Pacific at altitudes four to five miles high, and are "continually mixing with the upper atmosphere," said Kenneth Bowman, a noted atmospheric physicist at Texas A&M University and an expert on computer-based modeling of wind behavior.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/18/MNGU1IDTMQ.DTL