TOKYO – Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has vowed that the disasters that have affected their country would not defeat Japan.
“We will rebuild Japan from scratch,” he said in a nationally televised address, comparing the work with the country’s emergence as a global power from the wreckage of World War II.
“In our history, this small island nation has made miraculous economic growth thanks to the efforts of all Japanese citizens. That is how Japan was built,” he said.
Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano admitted, however, that the government could have been quicker in disaster response.
“In hindsight, we could have moved a little quicker in assessing the situation and coordinating all that information and provided it faster,” Edano said.
He said Japan was taken by surprise by the strong earthquake that spawned a tsunami that killed thousands and caused a nuclear crisis.
“The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans,” Edano said.
The entire world is on alert, watching for any evidence of dangerous spikes in radioactivity spreading from the six-reactor Fukushima power plant.
As day broke in northeastern Japan yesterday, steam rose from Unit 3, an unwelcome development if not a new one that signaled continuing problems.
Emergency crews faced two continuing challenges at the plant: cooling the nuclear fuel in reactors where energy is generated and cooling the adjacent pools where thousands of used nuclear fuel rods are stored in water.
Engineers were able to restore limited power to the plant yesterday.
The nuclear safety agency said workers were on the brink of resuming a connection to the power grid. With the power up, engineers will be able to get the plant’s vital cooling systems online. In the meantime, they have been dumping water by hose and by air on the reactors to avert a feared meltdown.
The government’s nuclear and industrial safety agency raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis to level 5 from level 4 on a seven-level international scale.
Spinach and milk in farms near the Fukushima plant were tainted with radiation levels that exceeded the government’s safety limits. The radiation level detected in spinach is one fifth of one CT scan.
The milk was found 20 miles from the plant while the spinach came from a neighboring prefecture.
Edano said, however, that the products “pose no immediate health risk” and that further monitoring was being conducted on other foods. He said if tests show further contamination, food shipments would be halted from the area.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it will monitor foods imported from Japan for radiation exposure, but expect no risk to the US food supply.
Edano said Tokyo is now asking Washington for additional help, a change from a few days ago when Japanese officials disagreed with American assessments of the severity of the problem.
In a written statement, Tokyo Electric’s president Masataka Shimizu apologized to the public.
“We sincerely apologize…for causing such a great concern and nuisance,” he said.
The company’s managing director, Akio Komori, broke down in tears after leaving a news conference in Fukushima in which exposure levels were discussed.
As of yesterday, the national police agency said 7,197 people had been confirmed dead while 10,905 were officially listed as missing.
Hopes of finding many more survivors in the rubble have diminished amid a cold snap that has hit Japan’s northeast, covering much of the disaster area in snow early last week.
– AP