Japan 8.8 earthquake & Tsunami

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A world figure skating championship ‘nightmare'

Didier Gailhaguet, president of the French figure skating federation, says he does not see how the Japanese Skating Federation can stage a world championship following the disasters that have struck that country in the past week.

“It is a nightmare,” he said by phone from France on Wednesday.

France brought home its European champion, Florent Amodio, this week after he had gone to train on a southern Japanese island with coach Nikolai Morozov the week before the world championships were to be held (March 21 to 27). The world championships have since been postponed indefinitely, although the International Skating Union is expected to make an announcement on the event's fate on Friday or Monday.

“We were really concerned about the radiation,” Gailhaguet said. “We thought it best for him to get back. He really wanted to stay, but it was too dangerous. Two days after that, I think we made the right decision.”

French coach Didier Lucine had also been in Japan, and he too returned.

Gailhaguet said skating delegations are “anxious” about going to Japan for the event and he believes that some skaters could be “scared.”

However, he said he agrees with ISU president Ottavio Cinquanta that the skating world must respect the Japanese federation, although at the moment it would be too difficult to hold a world championship.

He also does not like an ISU suggestion that the world championships be postponed until October, because it pushes the event too close to the next season's Grand Prix events. The first of six Grand Prix – Skate Canada – will be held in Mississauga Oct. 21 to 23 and the other five follow in successive weeks in various cities.

Gailhaguet also thinks that the NHK Trophy, Japan's Grand Prix event, could also be in jeopardy because of the disasters, which he feels will not be settled within months. “It could take a year,” he said.

If the world championships were to be held in October, skaters would need to train for four routines: two from last season for the 2011 world championships and two for the coming season. “As soon as the world championships would be over, they would start the Grand Prix,” Gailhaguet said. “If you want the skaters to be at their peak in September or October, [for the next season], you are going to need a rest.”

On the other hand, federations need to respect Japan's difficulties, he said. In trying to find a compromise to benefit Japan, he said the world championships that are already scheduled to take place in Nice, France, in March of 2012 could be shifted to allow the Japanese to hold the world championships then.

However, Gailhaguet suggested that the Nice event be shifted to March of 2013, which has already been awarded to London, Ont., and therefore, that the Canadian event be moved to March of 2014, a month after the Sochi Olympics.

“There's absolutely no way we'd go for that,” said William Thompson, chief executive officer of Skate Canada. He pointed out that Canada had already taken on a post-Olympic world championship in 2006, with all of its attendant difficulties. “We have 2013,” Thompson said. “That's just not in the cards at all. Nice try, Didier.”

 

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yeah go to finland so ice princess have more chance

Figure skating world championships are postponed
The 2011 World Figure Skating Championships will be the World Figure Skating Championships for the 2010–2011 season. They are an annual figure skating competition in which elite figure skaters compete for the title of World Champion.

The competition was to be held from March 21–27, 2011 at the Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan, with the Japan Skating Federation hosting. The event was originally assigned to Nagano.

The International Skating Union is expected to announce an alternative to Tokyo.

Accepting that Tokyo could not host the World Figure Skating Championships next week, the sport's governing body stepped up efforts Monday to find a new venue and dates for its marquee event.

The International Skating Union is expected to announce a backup plan this week after giving up hopes — initially shared with Japanese organizers — to proceed as planned after Tokyo's Yoyogi stadium escaped damage in Friday's devastating earthquake and tsunami.

 

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Local volunteers help carry belongings of evacuees from Futaba, a town near the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture on Saturday.

In this handout image provided by U.S. Navy, Sailors aboard the U.S. 7th Fleet command ship USS Blue Ridge stand-by to move pallets of humanitarian relief supplies across the ship's flight deck

 

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An electric organ is overturned after an earthquake and tsunami in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture

Japanese American Kit Miyamoto, a structural engineer from United States, is in Japan to help assess damage.

 

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Japan warns on quake deaths rise

Police in Japan say 15,000 people may have been killed in a single prefecture, Miyagi, by the huge quake and tsunami which struck nine days ago.

The announcement came as the official death toll rose to 8,133, with 12,272 people missing.

But there was some good news after an 80-year-old woman and a boy believed to be her grandson were found alive in the rubble of Ishinomaki city.

Attempts go on to stave off a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Engineers are still working to restore power supplies to the plant's cooling systems, which were knocked out by the tsunami.

But even when they do, there is no guarantee the cooling systems in the plant will work, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Toyko.

Experts say that an improvised spraying operation using fire trucks may have to continue for months, our correspondent says.

But officials said conditions in reactor 3 - which has presented engineers with the most serious problems - appeared to have stabilised on Sunday, after they warned earlier that rising pressure might require radioactive steam to be vented.
Homeless

The new figure of a possible 15,000 dead comes from police in the worst-hit Miyagi prefecture, and does not include the thousands more dead and missing in areas to the north and south.

It is looking increasingly clear that the death toll will top 20,000 people at least, our correspondent says.

The disaster dwarfs anything Japan has seen since World War II and people are beginning to talk of the disaster in similar terms, he says.

In a rare story of survival, an elderly woman and a 16-year-old boy, believed to be her grandson, were found alive in a house in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, nine days after the quake, said Japanese media and police.

Sumi and Jin Abe were trapped when their home collapsed in the quake but were able to get food from the refrigerator. They are both being treated in hospital.

The authorities have begun building temporary homes for some of the hundreds of thousands of people - including an estimated 100,000 children - still sheltering at emergency evacuation centres.



The destruction of the mobile phone network means people are queuing for hours to make their allocated phone call of one minute.

And crippling fuel shortages mean long queues at some petrol stations.

Meanwhile, at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, firefighters have continued to spray water at the dangerously overheated reactors and fuel rods, in a desperate attempt to avert a meltdown.

Engineers hope that restoring power will allow them to restart pumps to continue the cooling process, and have attached power lines to reactors 1 and 2, but it is unclear when they will attempt to turn the power back on.

Kyodo news agency quoted Tokyo Electric Power Co as saying that previously overheated spent-fuel storage pools at reactors 5 and 6 had been cooled by Sunday morning.

On Friday officials raised the alert level at the plant from four to five on a seven-point international scale of atomic incidents.

The crisis, previously rated as a local problem, is now regarded as having "wider consequences".
Food ban mulled

Radiation levels have risen in the capital Tokyo, 240km (150 miles) to the south, but officials say the levels recorded are not harmful.

Radioactive contamination has been found in some food products from the Fukushima prefecture, Japanese officials say.

The iodine was found in milk and spinach tested between 16 and 18 March and could be harmful to human health if ingested, the officials said.

International nuclear experts at the IAEA say that, although radioactive iodine has a short half-life of about eight days, there is a short-term risk to human health if it is ingested, and it can cause damage to the thyroid.

On Sunday, chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said the government would decide by Monday whether to restrict consumption and shipments of food products from the area in the vicinity of the Fukushima plant.

But Reuters reported the health ministry had already prohibited the sale of raw milk from Fukushima prefecture.

Traces of radioactive iodine have also been found in tap water in Tokyo and five other prefectures, officials said on Saturday.

The traces are within government safety limits, but tests usually show no iodine.

Meanwhile, radiation has been detected for the first time in Japanese exports, with Taiwanese officials finding contamination in a batch of fava beans, although they say the amount is too small to be dangerous to humans.

 

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A sign is placed along a road in Tamura, Fukushima prefecture, March 19, 2011. The sign reads, "Danger in 10 km. Restricted Area. Fukushima Police Department ".​

 

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A view of empty streets in a neighbourhood in Tamura, Fukushima prefecture, March 19, 2011. Residents are staying indoors due to radiation risk after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant was wrecked by an earthquake and tsunami...​

 

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A genaral shows tsunami damage in Kessennuma, Miyagi prefecture on March 20, 201
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A woman drinks miso soup handed out for free in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture on March 20, 2011. Workers were close to restoring power to a nuclear plant's overheating reactors as the toll of dead or missing from Japan's worst natural disaster in nearly a century passed 20,000.​

 

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Sellers wait for consumers to pay, in the garage of a shop in Sendai in Miyagi prefecture on March 20, 2011. Japan has again detected 'abnormal levels' of radiation in milk and spinach taken from areas near a quake-hit nuclear plant, government spokesman Yukio Edano said, urging consumers to stay calm.​

 

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People queue to buy food at a supermarket in Sendai, Miyagi prefecture on March 20, 2011.​

 

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Two Japanese women, using golf clubs as walking sticks, scavenge for their belongings near a wrecked apartment block in the earthquake and tsunami destroyed town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan Sunday, March 20, 2011.​

 

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Japanese soldiers carry the wrapped body of a victim in the earthquake and tsunami destroyed town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan Sunday, March 20, 2011.​

 

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Two Japanese soldiers stop to look at a ship which was blocking a road which their men were trying to clear in the earthquake and tsunami destroyed town of Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan Sunday, March 20, 2011.​

 

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People who evacuated from Futaba, a city near the quake-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, rest in a space cordoned off with cardboard in a hallway at the evacuees' new shelter Saitama Super Arena, near Tokyo March 20, 2011, nine days after an earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. About 2,300 people mainly from Futaba area arrived in Saitama, about 250 km (155 miles) away from their hometown, to evacuate after radiation leakage warnings.​

 

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Saitama Prefecture has accepted people evacuating from the town of Hutaba, located within a 20 km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Many people also went there to volunteer and provide aid supplies. Saitama, Japan

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Cambodian Buddhist monks pray for victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami at a private university in Phnom Penh on March 20, 2011.

Cambodian students pray for victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami at a private university in Phnom Penh on March 20, 2011.​

 

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Pills of potassium iodide, foreground, are placed after being delivered to a shelter in Miharu town, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, Sunday, March 20, 2011. The pills, given by the government to those living within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, help reduce chances of thyroid cancer, one of the diseases that may develop from radiation exposure, by preventing the body from absorbing radioactive iodine.​

 

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This Tuesday, March 15, 2011 photo shows bottles of potassium iodide on the shelf of the Texas Star Pharmacy on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 in Plano, Texas. The pharmacy has been receiving an unusually high number of calls about potassium iodide from people who are afraid radiation from the Japan nuclear crisis will reach the U.S. Health agencies in California and western Canada warned Tuesday that there's no reason for people an ocean away to suddenly stock up on potassium iodide, even as some key suppliers say they're back-ordered and getting panicked calls from would-be customers.​

 

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A woman rummaged through her damaged home in the town of Yamamoto, in northeastern Japan, on Friday.

Shinobu Sugimoto, 29, returned to his home in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, to collect belongings. He picked up a basketball, a jacket, a pair of glasses, a pair of sneakers and some photos.