BBC news 2011-03-15 加文本

BBC news 2011-03-15

BBC News with Iain Purdon

Japan has asked for international help as it battles to cool nuclear reactors at a power station damaged in Friday's earthquake and tsunami. Nuclear regulators in the United States say they've been asked to provide water and other resources to the Fukushima plant. The head of the United Nations nuclear agency, Yukiya Amano, said the IAEA has also been asked for help. Kerry Skyring reports from Vienna.

Yukiya Amano gives a reassuring assessment of Japan's handling of its nuclear crisis. The plants have been shaken, flooded and cut off from electricity, he says, and their workers have suffered personal tragedies. But despite all that, the reactor vessels have held, and radioactive release is limited. He does not believe that will resemble the disaster at Chernobyl 25 years ago. Responding to criticism that his agency was slow to provide information to the public, he said he will not try to second-guess the people on the ground. He described the events of the last few days as "truly uNPRecedented".

Millions of people in the affected areas of Japan's northeast are spending a fourth night without water, food, electricity or gas. The Kyoto news agency says more than 500,000 people have been left homeless by the earthquake and tsunami. Communications networks are still down in many areas.

About 2,000 bodies were found washed ashore along the coastline on Monday, and aftershocks continue to be felt regularly in Japan. Relief workers, soldiers and police have been deployed to the disaster zone, including the port city of Sendai, where a clean-up operation is getting underway. From there, our reporter Nick Ravenscroft.

Crushed together, piled into improbable stacks, stuck in fields or poking out of ditches, thousands of cars still lie where the surge of water left them. Each has to be checked by the rescuers in case there's a body inside. There have been reports that in some areas, the teams have been running out of bags to put corpses in. Away from the area which was inundated by the tsunami, the queues outside shops remain, and the shelves inside are still largely empty. It's difficult for lorries to get through with deliveries given the disruption to the transport network.

The crisis in Japan has led to growing international concern about the safety of nuclear power. Germany, Switzerland and India are among those who've promised to reassess safety issued. Here's Maddy Savage.

Germany was one of the first countries to announce a change in direction. All German nuclear plants will now be checked for safety, and recent plans to extend their lifespans have been put on hold for three months. The Swiss government said that no new plants would be approved there until more is known about what caused the accident in Japan, and India also argued for a renewed focus on safety standards.

Turkey says it's pressing ahead with plans for two new nuclear plants, including one that might Japanese technology.

World News from the BBC

Arab Gulf states have sent security forces into neighbouring Bahrain to help the ruling family there deal with the growing Shia-led protest movement. The deployment is part of a regional cooperation agreement. James Robbins reports.

Witnesses have described seeing about 150 Saudi Arabian armoured troop carriers and other vehicles entering Bahrain over the causeway that links the two Gulf kingdoms. A Saudi official said about 1,000 troops had been deployed. This is the first time that any Arab government has called for outside military help during the current wave of protests sweeping the region. Bahrain's Shia Muslim majority has long complained of discrimination and dominance by the Sunni minority, including the ruling royal family. Bahrain's predominantly Sunni neighbours are clearly nervous about their own position.

Opposition forces in Libya say they have come under heavy attack by troops loyal to Colonel Gaddafi in the key eastern town of Ajdabiya. The town is the last big population centre before the main rebel city Benghazi. The latest fighting comes after the opposition said its fighters had pushed back government soldiers who captured the oil town of Brega on Sunday.

The French car maker Renault has apologised to three senior managers it sacked after wrongly accusing them of industrial espionage. Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.

In January amid much media fanfare, Renault sacked three senior executives, all of whom worked on the company's much wanted and soon-to-be-launched electric cars after claiming to have evidence that they'd given away secrets about the programme in return for large sums of money. Over the last few weeks, Renault's management had been repeatedly asked to produce the evidence against the men. Their failure to do so aroused growing suspicions that the whole scandal has been a put-up job, and that has now dramatically been confirmed.

Renault's chief executive Carlos Ghosn said he'd refused an offer by his deputy to resign over the scandal.

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