There's not much good news in the wake of last week's devastating 9.0 earthquake in Japan. So far, the disaster may have left as many as 10,000 dead and half a million homeless, as well as sparking a nuclear crisis that is still unfolding. But amid the tragedy, some tsunami and earthquake victims have--against the odds--reunited with their loved ones and shared their incredible tales of survival.
Akiko Kosaka, who was studying English in California, had all but given up hope of hearing that her family had survived in the coastal village of Minami Sanriku. Nearly half the town's inhabitants are missing or feared dead.
After a friend tipped her off, Kosaka found a YouTube video of local news coverage that shows her older sister wearing a hard hat and calling out to the cameras to let her little sister in America know that the family has survived, Kosaka told CNN. The video shows that the houses next to her family home have been destroyed, making the family's survival all the more miraculous. You can watch her story, and other moving reunion vidoes, below.
"I didn't think they survived," she told CNN. "I cried for three days--Friday, Saturday, Sunday." Kosaka is now trying to let them know she's received their message through a video she uploaded.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal has documented an elderly couple's journey to a small coastal town devastated by the tsunami to see if they could find their daughter and three grandchildren living there.
CNN has translated NHK video showing a slew of reunions three days after the quake first hit. One man speaks to his wife over the phone and hears for the first time that she has survived. Another man searches for the employees in his now-destroyed sake factory, and finally reuintes with one.
"Today Show" host Ann Curry helped worried family members find Californian Canon Purdy, who returned to the town of Minamisanriku, where she taught English, the day the earthquake hit. Purdy's sister tweeted Curry that she was still missing, and asked for help finding her. Curry found Purdy in the town--where a four-story wave swept away many buildings--and got her on the phone with her sister.
A Japanese soldier right after he discovered a four-month-old baby in the rubble in the village of Ishinomaki. The soldiers somehow managed to locate the baby's father, who thought his baby had washed away with the tsunami's waves, and reunite them. "Her discovery has put a new energy into the search," a civil defence official told The Daily Mail. "We will listen, look and dig with even more diligence after this."
Japan’s nuclear crisis: Where things stand
The ongoing crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has turned into what one analyst calls "a slow-moving nightmare," with fires, leaks of poisonous radiation, and mass evacuations.
With events shifting quickly, and a sometimes confusing succession of announcements coming from authorities, it can be hard to get a clear sense of exactly what's happening, and of what to expect going forward. So here's a rundown, based on several recent news reports, on where things stand five days in…
What's at the root of the problem?
Friday's earthquake and tsunami caused power outages across northern Japan -- including at the Daiichi plant, which comprises six separate reactors. That in turn caused a failure of the reactors' cooling systems, which are needed to keep the nuclear fuel from overheating and melting down and/or triggering an explosion, releasing poisonous radiation into the atmosphere.
What's the current situation at the plant?
Yesterday, an explosion caused the containment vessel covering the Number 2 reactor to crack, releasing into the air a surge of radiation 800 times more intense than the recommended hourly exposure limit in Japan. One third of the fuel rods at the reactor were reportedly damaged. In addition, another powerful explosion blew a 26-foot wide hole in the side of Number 4 reactor, causing fires to break out and a pool containing spent fuel rods to begin dangerously overheating.
The Japanese military tried to use helicopters to dump water from the air to cool the Number 4 reactor, but that plan was abandoned after a third explosion -- this one damaging the roof and cooling system of the Number 3 reactor -- because it would have meant flying a helicopter into radioactive steam. Gregory Jaczko, the top U.S. nuclear official, said today that all the water was gone from the pool containing the fuel rods at the Number 4 reactor -- an assertion denied by a spokesman for the Japanese power company that runs the plant. If Jaczko is correct, it would mean there is nothing to stop the fuel from melting down, spewing radiation.
Water was also poured into the Numbers 5 and 6 reactors, suggesting that essentially the entire plant could be at risk of overheating.
In what appears to have been an understatement, the plant operator described the situation at the Number 4 reactor as "not so good." But in some ways the rupture at the Number 3 reactor is especially troubling, because it's the only reactor that uses plutonium as part of its fuel mix. If absorbed into the bloodstream, plutonium can stay in the liver or bone marrow and cause cancer.
Japanese officials said early Thursday they're close to completing a new power line which would restore the cooling systems for the reactors, but it's unclear when the line will be up and running.
How much of the surrounding area is likely to be affected by the radiation?
The government has told the roughly 140,000 people who live within 18 miles of the plant to stay indoors, but has said that people outside that zone can safely go outside. However, some experts have accused the Japanese authorities of underplaying the severity of the crisis. The U.S. embassy has recommended that Americans within 50 miles of the plant evacuate the area or stay indoors.
Tokyo, 180 miles south of the plant, has recorded radiation levels only slightly above normal. Still, both France and Australia have urged their nationals throughout the country to leave, and many Tokyo residents have been staying indoors. One American couple living in Tokyo told family they don't yet see a need to leave, but are monitoring the situation closely.
What other ideas are being considered?
In what experts describe as a last-ditch effort, police are hoping to use a water cannon -- usually used to quell riots -- to cool the nuclear fuel. Officials have also proposed using boric acid, which can help slow nuclear reactions by absorbing neutrons.
On Monday, 750 workers were withdrawn from the facility, leaving a core of 50 to battle the crisis alone while exposing themselves to potentially deadly levels of radiation. But even those workers appeared to have been withdrawn today after a surge in radiation caused by new explosions made the area too dangerous.
What are the best- and worst-case scenarios?
The best case scenario is that efforts to cool the fuel rods succeed, and damage to the surrounding environment is limited to an area within about 15 miles of the plant. The worst is a full-scale meltdown of the reactors caused by overheating, which would release much larger amounts of radiation into the air than has yet occurred. In that case, the damage could potentially approach the level of the Soviet Union's 1986 Chernobyl disaster, for which estimates of deaths vary from 4000 to close to one million.
How does the crisis rank, in terms of nuclear plant accidents?
On Saturday, Japanese authorities ranked the incident a Level Four on a one-to-seven scale used to rank nuclear accidents. but things have worsened since then, and yesterday France's nuclear authority said it should be classified as a Level Six. Chernobyl is the only Level 7 accident ever to have occurred.
In this image released by Tokyo Electric Power Co., smoke billows from the No. 3 unit among four housings cover four reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex in Okumamachi, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, on Tuesday, March 15, 2011. (AP Photo/Tokyo Electric Power Co.)
JAPAN'S MIRACLE
Four-Month Old Baby
Amid the silent corpses a baby cried out - and Japan met its tiniest miracle.
On March 14 soldiers from the Japanese Defense Force were going door-to-door, pulling bodies from homes flattened by the earthquake and tsunami in Ishinomaki City, a coastal town northeast of Senda. More accustomed to the crunching of rubble and the sloshing of mud than to the sound of life, they dismissed the baby's cry as a mistake. Until they heard it again. (See 7 ways to help earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan.)
They made their way to the pile of debris, and carefully removed fragments of wood and slate, shattered glass and rock. And then they saw her: a four-month old baby girl in a pink woolen bear suit.
The tidal wave literally swept the unnamed girl away from her parents' arms when it hit their home on March 11. Since then her parents - both of whom survived the disaster - have taken refuge in their wrecked house, and worried that their little girl was dead. Soldiers managed to reunite the baby with her overjoyed father shortly after the rescue.
"Her discovery has put a new energy into the search," a civil defense official told a local news crew. "We will listen, look and dig with even more diligence after this." Ahead of the baby's rescue, officials reported finding at least 2,000 bodies washed up on the shoreline of Miyagi prefecture. How the child survived drowning - or being crushed by fallen trees and houses - remains a mystery. (See pictures of the calamity of Japan's quake.)
In a nation short on good news, other rescues have buoyed morale, too. In Iwate prefecture, northeastern Japan, the devastating tidal wave swept away an elderly woman along with her entire house - but it couldn't extinguish her will to live.
The infant was apparently safe and unharmed, and was reunited with her father after she was spotted by member of Japan's Self-Defense Force who had gone house to house looking for bodies.
Details about the child's amazing rescue were few, with some even suggesting she had been with her father since the area was ravaged by Friday's twin devastations, but the image of a baby in a pink jacket being held by a soldier is bringing much-needed comfort at a time of uncertainty and crisis.
70-Year Old and 60-Year Old Found Alive
Rescuers found the 70-year-old alive inside her home on March 15, four days after the black tidal wave wiped out much of the region. Osaka fire department spokesman Yuko Kotani told the Associated Press the woman is now receiving treatment in a local hospital. She is conscious but suffering from hypothermia. (See how to tend to Japan's psychological scars.)Elsewhere, 60-year old Hiromitsu Shinkawa survived two days at sea by clinging on to his floating rooftop. He was discovered 10 miles off the Japanese coastline. "Several helicopters and ships passed but none of them noticed me," he said after his March 13 rescue. "I thought that was going to be the last day of my life." (via Daily Mail)
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