Grim search after 37 die in Japan typhoon

Rescue teams carried out a painstaking search on Monday for the missing after a typhoon pounded western Japan leaving at least 37 people dead and more than 50 unaccounted for, local authorities said.
Torrential rain brought by powerful Typhoon Talas, which made landfall Saturday and was one of the deadliest in years, caused rivers to swell and triggered floods and landslides that swept away buildings, homes and roads.
Police and firefighters resumed a search for the missing early Monday, warning that the number of victims was set to rise as the continued threat of landslides and damaged access routes hampered relief efforts.
In the deadliest typhoon since an October 2004 storm killed nearly 100 people, floods triggered by Typhoon Talas gave rise to scenes eerily reminiscent of the aftermath of the March 11 tsunami that hit northeast Japan.
In Nachikatsuura town, a railway bridge was swept into a river, while TV footage showed splintered trees, crushed houses and cars tossed onto walls and buildings by the raging floodwaters that inundated entire neighbourhoods.
By Sunday, Talas had been downgraded to a tropical storm after it moved over Japan and into the Sea of Japan (East Sea), the Meteorological Agency said, but risks of further landslides posed a threat to rescue and recovery efforts.
The storm came after new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was sworn in on Friday, replacing Naoto Kan, who was heavily criticised for the government's response in the aftermath of the March 11 disasters.
"We will do our best in saving lives and finding the missing," Noda told reporters Monday.
The Talas weather system dumped 1.8 metres (six feet) of rain on a village in Nara prefecture for five days through Sunday, more than Tokyo's annual average rainfall, said the Yomiuri daily.
The Kyodo News agency and Jiji Press late Monday said the death toll had risen to 37.
"We are struggling to get a hold on the current situation... electricity is out and destroyed roads are preventing our vehicles from going into affected areas," said an official at the fire department in Tanabe, Wakayama prefecture.

"We are conducting operations everywhere in the city. With phone lines down, however, we have no means of communication" with those stranded in areas hit by landslides or flooding, the official said.
The daughter of Nachikatsuura town mayor Shinichi Teramoto was killed as the official ran disaster relief operations on Sunday and his wife was also missing. His house was destroyed by a torrent of water.
"I saw the body of my daughter. The best I could do was to be by her side for half an hour," NHK footage showed the mayor saying in his office.
"While I'm here, I don't want to show my sorrow even though I have this in my mind," he said.
Television footage showed massive landslides crushing wooden houses in mountain communities, with muddy water submerging streets and washing away wooden debris and cars.
A tally by Kyodo said at least 3,600 people were left stranded by landslides and collapsed bridges.
In hard-hit Wakayama and Nara prefectures, officials told AFP that more than 1,300 people were staying at evacuation centres with around 7,000 households being asked to flee.

5.6 quake rattles Japan near Fukushima site

An earthquake registering 5.6 shook the Pacific off Honshu, Japan, the U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday. That is the area of northeast Japan ravaged by a March 11 quake and tsunami that knocked out power at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

No immediate damage or casualties were reported from the quake that struck at 3:35 a.m. Friday (1835 GMT Thursday), the USGS said. No tsunami watch was immediately issued.
The epicenter of the quake was some 51 miles (83 kilometers) southeast of Fukushima, in Honshu, Japan, the USGS said. The quake was centered some 28 miles (45 kilometers deep, the agency said.
The March 11 quake was magnitude 9.0, triggering a disaster that devastated Japan's northeastern coast, destroying towns, homes and businesses. More than 22,600 people are dead or missing.

Japan begins nuclear charm offensive

Japan began a campaign Sunday to convince communities hosting nuclear reactors to let operations resume, with several local governments blocking nuclear power generation after the atomic crisis in Fukushima.
Central government officials held a briefing in Saga prefecture, where two reactors at the Genkai power plant are among several across the country that were halted for regular checks when a huge quake and tsunami hit on March 11.
Local officials have since withheld routine consent for operations to resume, citing safety concerns after the tsunami triggered a crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which has leaked radiation into air, soil and sea.
Sunday's briefing was broadcast online, but only seven government-selected local residents were allowed to attend, while the meeting venue was not disclosed to the public.
In a press conference after the 90-minute briefing, one of the seven complained that it had been "way too short".
Another participant said: "Officials used many technical terms that were too difficult to understand. Since I didn't understand, I cannot agree with their explanation."
Dozens of protesters demonstrated outside the building against the government's nuclear policy.
"This is a programme designed to lead to an approval for the resumption of operations of the Genkai reactors. We cannot accept that," one of the protesters, Hatsumi Ishimaru, 59, was quoted by Kyodo News as saying.
Nuclear energy makes up about a third of Japan's overall energy supply, but the government has faced stiff criticism from the public on the issue since the Fukushima crisis forced the evacuation of thousands of local residents.

New leak feared at stricken Japan nuclear plant

Radioactive water appears to be leaking from a waste disposal building at Japan's Fukushima nuclear complex, operator Tokyo Electric Power said on Thursday, in a new setback to the battle to contain radiation from the crippled power plant.
The disclosure by Tepco raises the stakes in a race to complete by next month a system to decontaminate a massive pool of radioactive water at the site that critics see as a growing risk to both the nearby Pacific and groundwater.
A magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the massive tsunami that followed killed about 24,000 people and knocked out the Fukushima plant on March 11, triggering the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
The crisis, which has displaced some 80,000 residents from around the plant, prompted a review of Japan's energy policy and growing calls for efforts to step up health monitoring for a crisis now in its 11th week.
Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency began an inspection on Thursday of equipment damaged by the tsunami at a second nuclear plant, the Tokai complex about 120 km (75 miles) north of Tokyo, as part of an investigation prompted by the Fukushima accident.
A poll by the Asahi newspaper published on Thursday showed that 42 percent of Japanese people opposed nuclear power, up from 18 percent before the disaster.
The survey underscored the public's deepening concerns about nuclear safety and criticism of the way the government and Tepco initially responded to the crisis and how they appeared to have been repeatedly slow in admitting the gravity of the situation.
Although many outside experts had concluded that uranium fuel in three Fukushima reactors had melted down within days of the crisis, Tepco only announced that conclusion this week.
"We have to take seriously the criticism that we haven't done enough to provide and circulate information," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a news conference. "But we have never covered up information that we had."
POSSIBLE LEAK
The effort to regain control of the plant relies on pumping massive quantities of water to cool the three reactors that suffered meltdowns and storing the contaminated water in an improvised storage facility. Tepco officials said, however, that the water level in the storage facility had dropped, suggesting a leak.
Environmental groups have focused on the threat to sea and ground water from the accident. Greenpeace said earlier this month it had collected samples of fish, seaweed and shellfish along the Fukushima coast that showed radiation levels above Japanese safety limits.
Residents of the town of Futaba, forced to evacuate along with others inside a 20-kilometre (12-mile) zone around the plant, were allowed to return briefly to their homes on Wednesday.
A day earlier, residents of the nearby town of Minami Soma had been allowed back to their homes for a two-hour visit wearing hooded white protective suits, masks and goggles.
Video shot by a couple returning home and broadcast on Japanese television showed a ghost town with weeds overrunning a garden and a stray dog barking in the distance.
"It didn't even feel like my own home," one woman told Nippon Television. "I thought I was prepared for that, but I wasn't."

Quake shifted Japan and towns now flood at high tide

When water begins to trickle down the streets of her coastal neighborhood, Yoshiko Takahashi knows it is time to hurry home.
Twice a day, the flow steadily increases until it is knee-deep, carrying fish and debris by her front door and trapping people in their homes. Those still on the streets slosh through the sea water in rubber boots or on bicycle.
"I look out the window, and it's like our houses are in the middle of the ocean," says Takahashi, who moved in three years ago.
The March 11 earthquake that hit eastern Japan was so powerful it pulled the entire country out and down into the sea. The mostly devastated coastal communities now face regular flooding, because of their lower elevation and damage to sea walls from the massive tsunamis triggered by the quake.
In port cities such as Onagawa and Kesennuma, the tide flows in and out among crumpled homes and warehouses along now uninhabited streets.
A cluster of neighborhoods in Ishinomaki city is rare in that it escaped tsunami damage through fortuitous geography. So, many residents still live in their homes, and they now face a daily trial: The area floods at high tide, and the normally sleepy streets turn frantic as residents rush home before the water rises too high.
"I just try to get all my shopping and chores done by 3 p.m.," says Takuya Kondo, 32, who lives with his family in his childhood home.
Most houses sit above the water's reach, but travel by car becomes impossible and the sewage system swamps, rendering toilets unusable.
Scientists say the new conditions are permanent.
Japan's northern half sits on the North American tectonic plate. The Pacific plate, which is mostly undersea, normally slides under this plate, slowly nudging the country west. But in the earthquake, the fault line between the two plates ruptured, and the North American plate slid up and out along the Pacific plate.
The rising edge of plate caused the sea floor off Japan's eastern coast to bulge up — one measuring station run by Tohoku University reported an underwater rise of 16 feet (5 meters) — creating the tsunami that devastated the coast. The portion of the plate under Japan was pulled lower as it slid toward the ocean, which caused a corresponding plunge in elevation under the country.
Some areas in Ishinomaki moved southeast 17 feet (5.3 meters) and sank 4 feet (1.2 meters) lower.
"We thought this slippage would happen gradually, bit by bit. We didn't expect it to happen all at once," says Testuro Imakiire, a researcher at Japan's Geospatial Information Authority, the government body in charge of mapping and surveys.
Imakiire says the quake was powerful enough to move the entire country, the first time this has been recorded since measurements began in the late 19th century. In Tokyo, 210 miles (340 kilometers) from Ishinomaki, parts of the city moved 9 inches (24 centimeters) seaward.
The drop lower was most pronounced around Ishinomaki, the area closest to the epicenter. The effects are apparent: Manholes, supported by underground piping, jut out of streets that fell around them. Telephone poles sank even farther, leaving wires at head height.
As surrounding areas clear rubble and make plans to rebuild, residents in this section of Ishinomaki are stuck in limbo — their homes are mostly undamaged and ineligible for major insurance claims or government compensation, but twice a day the tide swamps their streets.
"We can't really complain, because other people lost so much," says Yuichiro Mogi, 43, as his daughters examine a dead blowfish floating near his curb.
The earthquake and tsunami left more than 25,000 people either dead or missing, and many more lost their homes and possessions.
Mogi noticed that the daily floods were slowly carrying away the dirt foundation of his house, and built a small embankment of sandbags to keep the water at bay. The shipping company worker moved here 10 years ago, because he got a good deal on enough land to build a home with a spacious front lawn, where he lives with his four children and wife.
Most of the residences in the area are relatively new.
"Everyone here still has housing loans they have to pay, and you can't give away this land, let alone sell it," says Seietsu Sasaki, 57, who also has to pay off loans on two cars ruined in the flooding.
Sasaki, who moved in 12 years ago with his extended family, says he hopes the government can build flood walls to protect the neighborhood. He never paid much attention to the tides in the past, but now checks the newspaper for peak times each morning.
Officials have begun work on some embankments, but with much of the city devastated, resources are tight. Major construction projects to raise the roads were completed before the tsunami, but much of that work was negated when the ground below them sank.
The constant flooding means that construction crews can only work in short bursts, and electricity and running water were restored only about two weeks ago. The area still doesn't have gas for hot water, and residents go to evacuee shelters to bathe.
"We get a lot of requests to build up these areas, but we don't really have the budget right now," says Kiyoshi Koizumi, a manager in Ishinomaki's roads and infrastructure division.
Sasaki says he hopes they work something out soon: Japan's heavy summer rains begin in about a month, and the higher tides in autumn will rise well above the floor of his house.