Japan Nuclear Crisis

„Engineers have been able to pump water into the damaged reactors to cool them down, but leaks have resulted in the pooling of tons of contaminated, radioactive water that has prevented workers from conducting further repairs. Aftershocks on Monday briefly cut power to backup pumps, halting the injection of cooling water for about 50 minutes before power was restored. A month after the disaster, more than 145,000 people are still living in shelters, and the government on Monday added five communities to a list of places people should leave to avoid long-term radiation exposure. A 12-mile (20-kilometer) radius has already been cleared around the plant.

The disaster is believed to have killed more than 25,000 people, but many of those bodies were swept out to sea and more than half of those feared dead are still listed as missing. Aftershocks have taken more lives. In Iwaki, a city close to the epicenter of a magnitude-7.0 temblor Monday, a landslide brought down three houses, trapping up to seven people. Four were rescued alive, but one of those – a 16-year-old girl – died at the hospital, a police official said. He would not give his name, citing policy.

Around 210,000 people have no running water and, following Monday's aftershocks, more than 240,000 people are without electricity. In all, nearly 190,000 people have fled their homes, the vast majority of whom are living in shelters, according to the national disaster agency. About 85,000 are from the cleared zone around the nuclear plant; their homes may be intact, but it's not known when they'll be able to return to them.”