KEPCO says fault under nuclear plant "not active"

The operator of Japan's only nuclear power plant that is currently online says a fault running beneath the facility is not active. However, expert opinions remain divided over the issue.

At the Ohi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture, south of the Number 3 reactor, Kansai Electric dug a trench 70 meters long and 40 meters deep.

The power company said on Monday that the fault found in the bottom of the trench has not moved in the last 120,000 to 130,000 years, and does not fit the definition of an active fault.

If the fault is determined to be active, operations of the Number 3 and Number 4 Reactors may be suspended.
[link to www3.nhk.or.jp]
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All underground water storage tanks at Fukushima plant emptied

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday that it has finished pumping out radioactive water from all seven underground tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant after finding some of the cisterns were leaky.

The last underground tank to be emptied had contained around 3,000 tons of water, which was relatively less contaminated because it consisted mainly of seawater that entered the Nos. 5 and 6 reactor buildings when the plant was engulfed by tsunami waves following the massive earthquake on March 11, 2011.

Highly radioactive water stored in other underground tanks had been transferred to more reliable containers above ground before TEPCO started handling the less contaminated water from June 11.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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Last elderly evacuees settling in to new lives, want to keep it that way
KAZO, Saitama Prefecture--For more than 100 mostly elderly evacuees here, life at their shelter is anything but comfy. And yet, they are loathe to return to their "ideal" lives.

Instead, they want to spend what time is left to them in the company of their new-found friends.

In a nutshell, the sole remaining evacuation center set up after the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster has become a "second home" for many of the occupants.

The evacuees here are from the town of Futaba, which lies within a stone's throw of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.

In the aftermath of the nuclear disaster, some 2,000 temporary shelters were set up across Japan.

But all except one, in Kazo, Saitama Prefecture, have been closed as temporary housing was developed.

Even after the town office moved back to Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, on June 17, 109 evacuees from Futaba are still living in a building of a former prefectural high school in Kazo.

Hideko Hayashi, 81, rises at 5 a.m. daily in a lecture room on the second floor of the school gym.

Her "home" is a 17-square-meter space. A thin partition of corrugated cardboard standing 1 meter high separates her from her neighbor. Hayashi created a simple chest of drawers and a shoe box using cardboard.

More: [link to ajw.asahi.com]





And now think we had evacuated the whole of Tokyo!

The World cant work without Tokyo
and Humans cant live without a place called Home!