Military Rescues Citizens in Japan While Nuclear Experts Work to Rescue Reactor Cores

Japan launched a massive military rescue operation on Saturday after the quake-fed tsunami killed hundreds of people and turned the northeastern coast into a swampy wasteland. The official death toll stood at 413, with 784 still missing.

Great concern for Japan as US nuclear experts warned Saturday that pumping sea water to cool an earthquake-stricken Japanese nuclear reactor was an “act of desperation” that may foreshadow a Chernobyl-like disaster.

“The situation has become desperate enough that they apparently don’t have the capability to deliver fresh water or plain water to cool the reactor and stabilize it, and now, in an act of desperation, are having to resort to diverting and using sea water.”
— Robert Alvarez, nuclear disarmament proponent at the Institute for Policy Studies.

The major plant at the nuclear plant was that a “station blackout” occurred, resulting in the loss of offsite air-conditioning power combined with the failure of onsite power — diesel generators.