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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Japan launches massive search for dead |
| 2011-04-25 |
| [Al Jazeera] Japan will send nearly 25,000 soldiers backed by boats and aircraft into its disaster zone Monday on an intensive land-and-sea mission to recover the bodies of those killed by last month's earthquake and tsunami, the military said. Agriculture officials also plan to send a team of veterinarians into the evacuation zone around a stricken nuclear plant to check on hundreds of thousands of abandoned cows, pigs and chickens, many of which are believed to have died of starvation and neglect. The government is considering euthanising some of the dying animals, officials said. About 14,300 people have been confirmed dead so far in the catastrophic March 11 tsunami and earthquake. Another 12,000 remain missing and are presumed killed. Some of their bodies were likely swept out to sea, while others were buried under the mass of rubble. Clean-up crews have already discovered some remains as they removed rotting debris to clear the area for rebuilding. But the two-day military search operation will be far more extensive, Ippo Maeyama, a spokesperson for the defense ministry, said on Sunday. "We will do our utmost to recover bodies for bereaved families," he said. A total of 24,800 soldiers will scour the rubble, backed by 90 helicopters and planes, he said. Another 50 boats, along with 100 navy divers, will search the waters up to 20km off the coast, he said. Police, coasties and US troops will also take part. "It's been very difficult and challenging to find bodies because the areas hit by tsunami are so widespread," he said. "Many bodies also have been swept away by the tsunami." The operation will be the third intensive military search for bodies since the disaster last month. With the waters receding, Maeyama hopes the teams will have more success. The search was complicated by the decomposition of some of the corpses, he said. Some had already turned into skeletons. "You have to be very careful in touching the bodies because they quickly disintegrate. We cannot tell the bodies' gender anymore, let alone their age," he said. The searches will continue, however, "as long as families want us to look for their loved ones," Maeyama said. Meanwhile, ...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Nunzio had his hands full of angry bleached blonde... the government in the Fukushima prefecture will send a team of six veterinarians into the 20km evacuation zone around the radiation-leaking Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant to survey the livestock there. Farmers in the area were estimated to have left 3,000 cows, 130,000 pigs and 680,000 chickens behind when they hurriedly decamped the area last month when the nuclear crisis started. With no time for burials, veterinarians who find dead livestock will spray lime over them to prevent them from spreading disease, agricultural officials said. Officials said they would seek permission from the owners of animals still alive before euthanising them. "Killing animals is the very last resort," said Yutaka Kashimura, an agricultural official in Fukushima. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #2 RENSE > [Fukushima]JAPANESE SCIENTIST - NO ONE KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT |{UPI] HEALTH RISKS NUMEROUS NEAR NUCLEAR PLANT. * SAME > TEMPERATURE IN #4 SPENT FUEL POOL CONTINUES TO RISE |NHK.jp] RADIOACTIVE WATER [Levels] IN NO.3 AND NO.4 REACTORS RISES, despite injection of new cooling water. * TOPIX > ANALYSTS: FUKUSHIMA EXPLOSIONS STILL POSSIBLE, as due to on-going TEPCO efforts to rebuild + re-energize the Fukushima plant. Looks like TEPCO + TOKYO haven't made a final decision on either energizing Reax #5, 6 or Other, nor to permanently close down Fukushima in its entirety??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-04-25 22:29 |
| #1 FREEREPUBLIC > JAPAN: WORKERS LOCKED IN BATTLE AT FUKUSHIMA, EXPOSURE TO RADIATION RISING. Calling all Samurai + Japanese, battle is being joined at Fukushima for the Safety + Future of the Japanese Nation. [MONGOL INVASION + "DIVINE WINDS" here]. Your Emperor Akihito, however, is not certain on how to fight the SUN + GWCC = UNDERSEA QUAKE ZONES. and * RENSE > HIGH-RESOLUTION PHOTOGRAPHS PROVE [MOX]REACTOR CORE EXPLODED AT [Fukushima] BUILDING/UNIT #3. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-04-25 00:23 |