BBC news 2011-03-16 加文本

BBC news 2011-03-16

BBC News with Iain Purdon

The operators of the Japanese nuclear plants damaged in Friday's earthquake and tsunami say essential cooling functions are being restored following a number of explosions and a fire which released dangerous levels of radiation. The company has now revealed that four explosions took place rather than the three reported earlier, and it's struggling to contain the most critical reactor. Chris Hogg reports from Tokyo.

Since Friday, they have been struggling to cool the fuel rods in four reactors at the Fukushima power plant. A series of explosions and a fire have hampered that work. For a while, dangerously high levels of radiation were emitted. They later felt levels still abnormal, but no longer a threat to human health. They are still pumping seawater through the reactors to try to stabilise them. The longer this goes on, the more chance they have of success, as over time the rods will cool. But the repeated releases of different amounts of radiation - some large, some small - are unnerving the Japanese.

Amid concerns about radiation, a number of airlines have cancelled flights to Tokyo. Austria says it's moving its embassy to Osaka, 400km southwest of Tokyo, while China is preparing to evacuate its nationals from the areas closest to the damaged nuclear plant.

The Japanese authorities are still struggling to cope with the humanitarian aftermath of Friday's earthquake and tsunami. More than half a million people are living in temporary shelters, which are short of water, food and fuel, while more freezing weather and snow is predicted for the days ahead. Nearly 3,500 people are now known to have died. Alastair Leithead has visited one of the worst affected parts of northern Japan, Minami Sanriku.

Yukio Sato is 80. He showed me where the 30m-high waves dumped debris on his back doorstep that left the family home untouched.

"It was astonishing. There used to be lots of houses down there, and they are all gone, the buildings from below washed up here."

There's little left, but roofs piled high, the wooden shards of the homes ripped up, and the odd family photo protruding from the mud.

European Union countries have agreed to carry out stress tests in all their nuclear power stations following the accidents at the Japanese Fukushima plant. The energy commissioner said the tests would take place before the end of the year. Earlier, Germany said it was taking its oldest nuclear power stations offline for a three-month period, during which safety standards would be reviewed.

The Ugandan government and the Anglo-Irish oil and gas company Tullow have signed an agreement that paves the way for the construction of a $10bn oil refinery. Uganda gave its consent to the arrangement once Tullow agreed to pay more than $400m that the government says the company owed in taxes.

World News from the BBC

At least two people have died in Bahrain, and hundreds have been injured in clashes between pro-democracy demonstrators and security forces. Doctors appeal for international help to ensure access to the wounded. The latest violence follows the imposition of a state of emergency by Bahrain's Sunni rulers, who earlier asked for the intervention of Saudi-led forces. This woman from Sitra, a Shia village outside the capital Manama, told the BBC what she'd heard from there.

"Unarmed civilians are being attacked by live rounds, and the accents of the troops was, so we knew that these are the Saudi troops who came yesterday. They started shooting people, and the health centre now is under siege. There are around 200 wounded people there, and the doctors there want to get them treated, but the hospitals are under siege, so they can't. Even the ambulances are taken by the troops."

Rebel-held positions in Libya have come under sustained attack from land and air as pro-Gaddafi troops continue to advance eastwards. Fighter jets bombed the outskirts of the town of Ajdabiya. Ian Pannell reports.

If, as it looks likely, Ajdabiya falls, it could give Colonel Gaddafi unfettered access to the main road to the border with Egypt, and that would effectively cut off Benghazi, Tobruk and many smaller towns on the northeast coast. Opposition fighters have shown they are woefully ill-prepared and ill-equipped to hold the advance of government troops. And unless military units that defected weeks ago now take a leading role, the 17 February revolution could be in real danger.

A judge in the United States has found a former nurse guilty of encouraging two people suffering from depression to commit suicide. William Melchert-Dinkel was accused of trawling the Internet for depressed people, and then entering fake suicide pacts or telling them how to kill themselves. He's due to be sentenced in May.

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