Tsunami Footage [HD] by James MacWhyte (videos): video of life on the street during the flooding, click here.
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Death Toll Estimate in Japan Soars as Relief Efforts Intensify – NYTimes.com
By MARTIN FACKLER and MARK McDONALD
SENDAI, Japan — Japan reeled from a rapidly unfolding disaster of epic scale on Sunday, pummeled by a rising death toll, destruction and homelessness from the combination of the earthquake and tsunami and new hazards from damaged nuclear reactors that were leaking radiation. The prime minister called it Japan’s worst crisis since World War II.
Japan’s $5 trillion economy, the world’s third-largest, was threatened with severe disruptions and partial paralysis as many industries shut down temporarily and the armed forces and volunteers mobilized for the far more urgent crisis of finding survivors, evacuating residents near the stricken power plants and caring for the victims of the record 8.9 magnitude quake that struck on Friday, which left more than 10,000 dead, many thousands homeless and millions without water, power, heat or transportation.
The most urgent immediate worries concerned the failures at two reactors within the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, where by Sunday evening engineers were still struggling to avert meltdowns and where some radiation had already leaked. Fukushima Daiichi and another power station, Fukushima Daiini, about 10 miles away, have been under a state of emergency since the quake struck.
The collective anxiety in Japan caused a rout in the Japanese stock market Monday morning, with the main index falling 5.5 percent, the worst drop in three years.
Worried about severe strains on the banking and financial systems, the Bank of Japan signaled that it was prepared to flood the economy with cash, and the government was discussing an emergency tax increase to help finance relief and recovery work. The Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the country’s crippled nuclear power grid, announced a series of rotating blackouts to conserve electricity — the first regularized power cuts in Japan in 60 years.
Full article here: Death Toll Estimate in Japan Soars as Relief Efforts Intensify – NYTimes.com.
