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Sunday, March 13, 2011 9:18 AM Posted by ZAKIR{F}KHURRAM Labels:

japan nuclear plant is damaged by erth quck..


At least 1,700 people are now believed to have been killed in Japan's earthquake and tsunami, but the final figure is likely to be much higher.

As Japan attempted to assess the full extent of the devastation, the nation faced an atomic emergency as cooling systems damaged by the quake failed at two nuclear reactors.

On Saturday morning state television in Japan showed pictures of a massive blast at Fukushima nuclear power plant that sent debris and a huge cloud of smoke into the air.

Subsequent to the explosion, one of the main buildings at the plant appeared to have collapsed. CNN later reported that the explosion "blew the roof off" one of the reactors.

But it was later confirmed that although the explosion had damaged a building containing a nuclear reactor, the reactor itself had withstood the explosion as it was protected within a steel casing.

Some radioactive material had earlier been detected in the vicinity of the plant.

Japan's nuclear agency said on Saturday that radioactive caesium and iodine had been detected near the number one reactor of the Fukushima 1 plant and that this may indicate that containers of uranium fuel inside the reactor may have begun melting. Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan has, however, said that the amount of radiation released was "tiny".

Nonetheless, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said that it will distribute iodine tablets to citizens living within affected regions near the plant.



The damaged building

The damaged building

Four workers are believed to have been injured in the explosion.

On Friday, cooling systems inside several reactors at both the Fukushima plants stopped working after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake. The injured staff had been working to try and cool the station’s nuclear reactor, after earthquake damage caused both the regular and backup cooling systems to collapse.

Some radioactive steam was released in order to try and ease the pressure on the struggling reactor.

People living in the area around the plant, which is situated 250km north-east of Tokyo, have been evacuated as a precautionary measure.

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