Powerful Super Tornado Killer in US killed 300

Shocked Americans struggled Thursday to grasp the magnitude of the worst US tornadoes in decades, which carved a trail of destruction across the south, claiming at least 295 lives.
Communities like Alabama Governor Robert Bentley's small hometown of Tuscaloosa were virtually wiped off the map and officials warned the body-count would rise as rescuers uncover more dead amid the debris.
Disbelief was written on faces across eight states crippled by the ferocious spring storms -- the deadliest tornado tragedy to strike the United States since 310 people were killed in 1974.
Scene: Deadly tornadoes rip apart life in southern US
Recalling the more recent horror of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, families picked through the remains of homes, businesses and schools, bearing witness to scenes of devastation more common in war zones or after earthquakes.

The toll reached 195 in Alabama and President Barack Obama said he would travel to the worst-hit state on Friday for a first-hand look at the unfolding human tragedy.
"The loss of life has been heartbreaking, especially in Alabama," Obama said at the White House, describing the disaster as "nothing short of catastrophic."
The storms "took mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors -- even entire communities," he said, vowing to rush federal assistance to those most in need.
States of emergency were declared from central Oklahoma to Georgia on the eastern seaboard and governors called out the National Guard -- including 2,000 troops in Alabama -- to help with the rescue and clean-up operations.
"We had a major catastrophic event here in Alabama with the outbreak of numerous long-track tornadoes," said Governor Bentley, who declared a major disaster for the state, where up to a million people were left without power.

Emergency responders searched through toppled trees, twisted billboards and ruined homes for signs of life, while thousands of survivors prepared to spend the night in makeshift shelters.
"There were direct hits on two towns, Hackleburg and Dadeville," National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist in Alabama, John De Block, told AFP.
Most of the homes in Hackleburg, population 1,500, were built on slab foundations and "the slabs have been swept clean in several locations," he said, adding that colleagues told him the town was "90 percent destroyed."
Focus: Tornadoes whipped up by wind, not climate
More than 160 tornadoes were reported on Wednesday alone and if more than 148 are confirmed that would set a new record for a 24-hour period, surpassing the so-called "Super Outbreak" in 1974.
In Tuscaloosa, population around 100,000, an AFP journalist witnessed entire blocks of the small town obliterated. In addition to 36 confirmed fatalities there were at least 600 people injured and dozens unaccounted for.
"Infrastructure has been absolutely devastated," Mayor Walter Maddox told CNN. "When you look at this path of destruction, likely five to seven miles (eight to 11 kilometers) long and half a mile to a mile wide, I don't know how anyone survived.
"There are parts of this city I don't recognize," he added.
It was also a dark day for Birmingham, Alabama's largest city with more than a million residents. Mayor William Bell spoke of "whole neighborhoods of housing, just completely gone. Churches, gone. Businesses, gone."
Incredulous Birmingham residents assessing the damage were counting their blessings at having survived, while others were distraught over the loss of their loved ones or homes.
"There were two-by-fours (wooden beams) falling out of the sky," convenience store manager Jack Welch said, adding "there were well over 30 homes destroyed" just behind his store.
The overall toll includes 34 deaths in Tennessee, 32 in Mississippi, 14 in Georgia, 12 in Arkansas, five in Virginia, two in Missouri, and one in Kentucky, according to state officials contacted by AFP.
Facts: Deadliest tornado days in US history
"Oh my God, our town is in pieces," said Tim Holt, a clerk at a local hotel in Ringgold, Georgia. "We saw the funnel cloud coming and I ran into the bathroom with my wife and daughter. It's an 80 percent loss in our town."
Several eastern states were still on tornado and severe thunderstorm alert Thursday, while another major storm system was forecast to bring heavy rain and high winds on Saturday.

Strong quake shakes buildings in Tokyo

A strong earthquake of magnitude 5.8 hit central Japan on Saturday morning, according to the US Geological Survey. The quake, which shook buildings in Tokyo, struck at 11:19 am (0219 GMT), 83 kilometres (52 miles) north of the capital and at a depth of 20 kilometres, the USGS said.
Operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said the tremor did not disrupt the emergency crews who are working around the clock to cool crippled reactors at a nuclear plant hit by a devastating earthquake and tsunami last month.
That earthquake -- the biggest ever recorded in Japan -- struck on March 11, triggering a huge tsunami and leaving 13,591 people dead, with another 14,497 still unaccounted for.
Tens of thousands of people lost their homes, while many others were forced to evacuate after a series of explosions at theFukushima Daiichi nuclear plant sent radiation spewing into the air.
The radiation leaks have resulted in bans on produce from the affected area and hurt the fishing and farming industries because of public fears over radioactivity in food.
On Friday, Japan's government ordered TEPCO to offer payouts to tens of thousands of people made homeless by the ongoing crisis.
The total cost from collapsed or damaged houses, factories and infrastructure such as roads and bridges is estimated to reach 16-25 trillion yen over the next three fiscal years, according to the Cabinet Office.
There were no immediate reports of any damage or casualties from Saturday's quake, which the Japan Meteorological Agency said had a magnitude of 5.9 and struck at a depth of 70 kilometres underground.

At least 22 dead as tornadoes rip across U.S.

The worst tornadoes to hit parts of the United States in decades have left 44 people dead, stripping roofs off houses and tossing mobile homes into the air like toys, emergency officials said Sunday. The trail of destruction began on Thursday evening in Oklahoma, where a giant twister almost wiped out the small town of Tushka -- population 350 -- tearing up most of its homes and businesses and killing two elderly residents. The storm system strengthened and expanded on Friday, whipping up hundreds more tornadoes that barreled through Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and North Carolina, before petering out in Virginia on Saturday night. "It's the most significant damage by a tornado since the early 80s," Governor Beverly Perdue told reporters in Raleigh, capital of worst-hit North Carolina, where 23 people died.Among seven people killed in Alabama were a mother and her two children sheltering inside their mobile home when it was thrown some 500 feet (150 meters) into the woods, landing on its roof.

Seven others died in Arkansas, four in Virginia, and one in Mississippi. Falling trees snapped power lines and came crashing down on cars and houses, killing occupants and causing widespread damage. Witnesses described hailstones the size of grapefruit.

"This is the worst storm, tornado-wise, since 1984," Patty McQuillan, a spokeswoman from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Raleigh, told AFP. 1984 saw the most destructive tornadoes in more than a century, with twisters sweeping through Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia, killing 57 people and injuring more than 1,000. "I actually do remember the last one," said McQuillan. "I believe that the destruction may even be greater this time than it was in 1984." More than 60 homes in North Carolina were destroyed and more than 400 others sustained heavy damage. Aerial footage showed a vast Lowe's home improvement store obliterated with no roof and flattened walls.
"I've never seen anything like this in my life," Perdue told local media. "There is a tremendous amount of property damage and damage to people's lives. The hardest is for the people whose lives have been devastated."
The governor declared a state of emergency on Saturday night to loosen up federal funds for what promises to be a long and painful recovery.
"The state of emergency allows the governor to deploy the necessary assets to respond to and recover from the storm and it's also a prerequisite for asking for federal disaster assistance," explained McQuillan.
The biggest toll in one area was 14 in North Carolina's Bertie County, which has a population of less than 20,000, according to the last census figures.
"We've had hurricanes, we've had floods, but we've never seen the loss of life we're seeing here," county official Zee Lamb told CNN, describing the vast complex of tornadoes that tore through the area.
"It was estimated about a half-mile to three-quarters of a mile wide and it lasted for about six to eight, 10 miles through the county," Lamb said.
Sam Bennett, 35, and his wife had just put their son, who turns two next week, down for a nap when they realized the storm was bearing down on their building in Raleigh.
"We hustled the dogs and the baby into the back rooms," Bennett told AFP. "It got louder and louder and we heard a couple of booms and the fire alarm went off."
The ceiling above them collapsed and water came pouring into their apartment, but the Bennetts could count themselves among the lucky ones -- at least they survived and their home is salvageable.
"The tornado outbreak led to a total of 241 tornado reports in 14 states over the three-day period," said Meghan Evans from Accuweather.com. "This will likely rank this tornado outbreak among the largest in history."
The meteorologist said there had been three main contributory factors: a powerful jet stream, abundant moisture and a strong cold front plowing across the South.
"A powerful jet stream helped to enhance the thunderstorm growth, while moisture surging in from the Gulf of Mexico acted as fuel for the thunderstorms."
Though more fatalities occurred in tornado outbreaks in 2008 (57) and 1985 (76), experts believe this weekend could have set a new record for the number of twisters over a three-day period.
It is feared the damage will run into the billions of dollars.

Japan expands nuclear evacuation, stops radiated water dumping

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan expanded the evacuation zone around a crippled nuclear plant to avoid exposing residents to high levels of accumulated radiation, as the struggle to contain the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl entered its second month. The operator of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex said it had stopped the discharge of low-level radioactive water into the sea that had drawn complaints from neighbouring China and South Korea.
Tokyo Electric Power Co, TEPCO, said 10,400 tonnes of low-level radioactive water, left by the tsunami, had been pumped back into the sea in order to free up storage capacity for highly contaminated water from the reactors.
On Monday, shortly after Japan marked one month since a March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered the nuclear disaster, a huge aftershock shook a wide swathe of eastern Japan, killing two people, and knocking out power to 220,000 households.
The epicentre of Monday's magnitude 6.6 tremor, which was followed by more than 25 aftershocks, was 68 km (90 miles) east of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex at the centre of the crisis.
The government announced earlier that because of accumulated radiation contamination, it would encourage people to leave certain areas beyond its 20 km (12 mile) exclusion zone around the plant. Thousands of people could be affected by the move.
Children, pregnant women, and hospitalised patients should stay out of some areas 20-30 km from the nuclear complex, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.
"These new evacuation plans are meant to ensure safety against risks of living there for half a year or one year," he said. There was no need to evacuate immediately, he added.
The move comes amid international concern over radiation spreading from the six damaged reactors at Fukushima, which engineers are still struggling to bring under control after they were wrecked by the 15-metre tsunami on March 11.
TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu visited the area on Monday for the first time the disaster. He had all but vanished from public view apart from a brief apology shortly after the crisis began and has spent some of the time since in hospital.
"I would like to deeply apologise again for causing physical and psychological hardships to people of Fukushima prefecture and near the nuclear plant," said a grim-faced Shimizu.
Dressed in a blue work jacket, he bowed his head for a moment of silence with other TEPCO officials at 2:46 p.m. (0546 GMT), exactly a calendar month after the earthquake hit.
Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato refused to meet him, but the TEPCO boss left a business card at the government office.
RADIOACTIVE WATER
Engineers at the plant north of Tokyo said they were no closer to restoring the plant's cooling system, which is critical to bring down the temperature of overheated fuel rods and to bringing the six reactors under control.
In a desperate move to cool the highly radioactive fuel rods, TEPCO has pumped water onto reactors, some of which have experienced partial meltdown.
But the strategy has hindered moves to restore the plant's internal cooling system as engineers have had to focus on how to store 60,000 tonnes of contaminated water.
Engineers are also pumping nitrogen into reactors to counter a build-up of hydrogen and prevent another explosion sending more radiation into the air, but they say the risk of such a dramatic event has lowered significantly since March 11.
The triple disaster is the worst to hit Japan since World War Two, leaving nearly 28,000 dead or missing and rocking the world's third-largest economy.
Concern at the government's struggle to handle the situation is mounting, with Prime Minister Naoto Kan's ruling party suffering embarrassing losses in local elections on Sunday.
Voters vented their anger at the government's handling of the nuclear and humanitarian crisis, with Kan's ruling Democratic Party of Japan losing nearly 70 seats in local election.
There is talk of forming a grand coalition of mainstream parties to tackle the massive task of recovery from the disaster. But the leader of one potential coalition partner said Sunday's polls made Kan's party unattractive.
"The people are saying the government has been handling the disaster badly. Joining hands with such a party ... is not what the people are hoping for," New Komeito head Natsuo Yamaguchi told Reuters in an interview.
The unpopular Kan was already under pressure to step down before March 11, but analysts say he is unlikely to be forced out during the crisis, set to drag on for months.
(Additional reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka and Kazunori Takada in Tokyo; Writing by Paul Eckert; Editing by Andrew Marshall)

Another Powerful earthquake aftershock rocks Tokyo

A strong offshore earthquake rocked Tokyo on Tuesday, swaying buildings in the Japanese capital and stopping subway services.
The US Geological Agency put the magnitude at 6.4, at a depth of 13.1 kilometres (8.1 miles), 77 kilometres east of Tokyo. The Japan Meteorological Agency had measured it at 6.3.
The quake hit at 8:08 am (2308 GMT Monday) off the coast of Chiba prefecture, just east of the capital. Japanese experts said there was no chance of a tsunami.
There were no immediate reports of fresh damage, including at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which has been releasing dangerous radioactive materials since it was damaged by the March 11 tsunami, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. Focus: Worst over, but dangers persist at Japan plant
Subway services in Tokyo temporarily stopped, but resumed operations shortly afterwards.
The runways of Narita international airport in the prefecture were temporarily closed for checks but had since reopened, Kyodo News said.
The limited shinkansen bullet train services running to the northern region since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami were briefly interrupted.
The latest quake was an aftershock "in a broad sense of the word" of the 9.0-magnitude quake of March 11 that killed more than 13,000 and left over 13,500 missing, Koshun Yamaoka, professor at Nagoya University, told public broadcaster NHK.
"We have to be aware of aftershocks, particularly in the first and second months after the original quake," he said.
Japan has experienced more than 400 aftershocks stronger than magnitude 5.0 since March 11.

Major aftershock shakes Japan's ruined northeast coast

TOKYO (Reuters) - A major aftershock rocked northeast Japan on Thursday and a tsunami warning was issued for the coast devastated by last month's massive quake and tsunami that crippled a nuclear power plant.
The warning was later lifted and no tsunami was reported after the quake, which struck shortly before midnight. No damage from the quake, measured at magnitude 7.4 by the Japan Meteorological Agency, was detected at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said.
Workers struggling to bring the plant under control were evacuated but returned once the tsunami warning was lifted, a TEPCO official said.
Large parts of northern Japan, whose infrastructure was severely damaged by the March 11 quake and tsunami, were without electricity following the latest of many aftershocks, the biggest since last month's killer quake.
Toru Hanai, a Reuters photographer in Oshu, Iwate prefecture, near the epicentre of Thursday's aftershock, said his hotel lost power and a water pipe burst.
"Everything fell. My room is a complete mess and power is widely out in this area," he said.
In the capital, Tokyo, buildings also shook.
"It started out as nothing much, then the building started swaying quite strongly," a Reuters witness said.
By 1:30 a.m. (1630 GMT) seven people were reported injured, two seriously, a spokesman for the National Police Agency said.
Last month's 9.0 magnitude quake triggered tsunami waves which swept in along the coast, wiping out towns. About 28,000 people were killed or are missing.
The disaster disrupted industry and affected supply chains around the world but it was not immediately clear if Thursday's aftershock would compound those problems.
At the Fukushima nuclear plant, TEPCO said it was continuing to inject nitrogen into reactor No.1 after no irregularities were reported.
Engineers, who sealed a leak this week that had allowed highly radioactive water into the sea, are pumping nitrogen into one reactor to prevent the risk of a hydrogen gas explosion, and want to start the process in another two reactors.
There were no abnormalities in radiation levels around Tohoku Electric's Onagawa nuclear power plant, where fuel rods are being cooled with just one outside power source, Japan's nuclear safety agency said.
As well as Fukushima Daiichi and Onagawa, nuclear power plants Higashidori in Aomori prefecture, Tokai No.2 in Ibaraki prefecture, and Fukushima Daini have been out of operation since the March quake.
No abnormalities were reported at those plants after Thursday's quake, which the meteorological agency said was an aftershock from last month's quake.
"Due to the (March 11 quake), the risk of landslides or buildings collapsing is higher than usual and there are possibilities of further damage with aftershocks," deputy chief cabinet secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama told reporters on Friday.
TOURISTS STAY AWAY
Japan's neighbours have sounded increasingly alarmed over the risk of radiation from the damaged plant 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, while tourists are staying away in what should be the peak season, and the country seeks ways to cut power use.
The world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years is also raising concern over safety in the United States, which has more atomic reactors than any other country, especially at one plant which is similar to the one in Fukushima damaged last month.
TEPCO said on Thursday it did not expect it would have to dump any more contaminated water into the ocean after Saturday.
Earlier, TEPCO said the chance of a repetition of the gas explosions that damaged two reactors in the first days of the disaster was "extremely small".
As engineers battle multiple crises -- some the result of efforts to try to cool reactors -- officials said it could take months to bring the reactors under control and years to clear up the toxic mess left behind.
"Data shows the reactors are in a stable condition, but we are not out of the woods yet," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters.
The government has already set up a 20-km (12-mile) exclusion zone around the plant, banned fishing along much of the northeast coast and set up evacuation centres for the tens of thousands forced to leave their homes following the crisis.
Trace levels of radioactive material had been detected in the air in 22 Chinese provinces but the amounts did not pose a threat to health or the environment, China's state news agency Xinhua said.
Earlier, China's Health Ministry said traces of radioactivity in spinach had been found in three provinces.
In South Korea, some schools were closed because parents were worried that rain could be toxic.
"We've sent out an official communication today that schools should try to refrain from outdoor activities," an education official in South Korea said.
South Korea's nuclear safety agency reported a low level of radioactive iodine and caesium particles in rain but said it was not enough to be a health concern. The few schools that closed were expected to reopen on Friday if the rain stopped.
India said a blanket ban on food items imported from Japan was not warranted, although authorities would monitor the situation every week, a source in the Trade Ministry said.
India said on April 5 it had imposed a three-month ban on imports of food from Japan on fears that radiation from an earthquake-hit nuclear plant was spreading to other parts of the country.
(Additional reporting by Mayumi Negishi, Chisa Fujioka, Yoko Nishikawa and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo, Sui-lee Wee in Beijing, Jack Kim in Seoul and Matthias Williams in New Delhi; Writing by Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Another Big 6.7 Magnitude earthquake strikes off Indonesia

Hundreds of residents fled an Indonesian port town for higher ground on Monday when an earthquake struck south of Java with a magnitude estimated by US seismologists at 6.7.
The epicentre in the Indian Ocean was 24 kilometres (15 miles) miles deep, the US Geological Survey said, after initially estimating it at 10 kilometres underground, and 277 kilometres south of the Javanese coast.
Indonesian seismologists put the magnitude at 7.1 and issued a tsunami warning, saying the tremor had the potential to cause a killer wave and asking recipients of its public alert SMS to warn others of the danger.
The warning was later cancelled.
When the quake struck hundreds of residents in the seaport town of Cilacap fled inland and to higher ground by motorbike, car and on foot, an AFP reporter said.
"They were all panicking and shouting 'quake, quake'," the reporter said.
Suharjono, the technical head of Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said shaking from the tremor had been felt in Pangandaran and Cilacap districts in Java.
"This quake roused people from their sleep," he said. "We have not received any reports of damage or casualties so far."
The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre had said that there was no risk of a widespread destructive wave, but there was a "very small possibility of a local tsunami".
The earthquake epicentre was 241 kilometres from the remote Australian territory of Christmas Island, and seismologists said the tremor was felt there, but no tsunami warning alert was issued for Australia.
"We had reports from there that they felt it," Geoscience Australia seismologist David Jepson told AFP, adding that it was described as a "moderate type quake".
Geoscience Australia put the quake at 6.7 magnitude.