Japan grapples with nuclear crisis | Reuters

Japan scrambled to avert a meltdown at a stricken nuclear reactor on Monday after a second hydrogen explosion rocked the facility, just days after a devastating earthquake and tsunami that killed at least 10,000 people

 

Roads and rail, power and ports have been crippled across much of Japan's northeast and estimates of the cost of the multiple disasters have leapt to as much as $170 billion. Analysts said the economy could even tip back into recession.

 

Japanese stocks closed down more than 6 percent, the biggest fall since the height of the global financial crisis in 2008.

 

Rescue workers combed the tsunami-battered region north of Tokyo for survivors and struggled to care for millions of people without power and water in what Prime Minister Naoto Kan has dubbed his country's worst crisis since World War Two.

 

Officials say at least 10,000 people were likely killed in the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that followed it. Kyodo news agency reported that 2,000 bodies had been found on Monday in two coastal towns alone.

 

"It's a scene from hell, absolutely nightmarish," said Patrick Fuller of the International Red Cross Federation from the town of Otsuchi.

 

"The situation here is just beyond belief, almost everything has been flattened. The government is saying that 9,500 people, more than half of the population could have died and I do fear the worst."

 

Crucially, officials said the thick walls around the radioactive cores of the damaged reactors at the nuclear power plant appeared to be intact after the hydrogen blast, the second there since Saturday.

 

The big fear is of a major radiation leak from the complex in Fukushima, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, where engineers have been battling since the weekend to prevent a meltdown in three reactors.

 

The core container of the No. 3 reactor was intact after the explosion, the government said, but it warned those still in the 20-km (13-mile) evacuation zone to stay indoors. The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), said 11 people had been injured in the blast.

 

Kyodo said 80,000 people had been evacuated from the zone, joining more than 450,000 other evacuees from quake and tsunami-hit areas in the northeast.

 

"Everything I've seen says that the containment structure is operating as it's designed to operate. It's keeping the radiation in and it's holding everything in, which is the good news," said Murray Jennex, of San Diego State University.

 

"This is nothing like a Chernobyl ... At Chernobyl (in Ukraine in 1986) you had no containment structure -- when it blew, it blew everything straight out into the atmosphere."

 

Officials said on Sunday that three nuclear reactors in Fukushima were at risk of overheating, raising fears of an uncontrolled radiation leak.

 

Engineers worked desperately to cool the fuel rods. If they fail, the containers that house the core could melt, or even explode, releasing radioactive material into the atmosphere.