Tokyo:World Health Organisation Report

 World Health Organisation said on Monday that radiation in food after an earthquake damaged Japanese nuclear plant was more serious than previously thought, eclipsing signs of progress in a battle to avert a catastrophic meltdown in the reactors.
Engineers managed to rig power cables to all six reactors at the Fukushima complex, 240 km north of Tokyo, and started a water pump at one of them to reverse the overheating that has triggered the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.
Some workers were later evacuated from one of the most badly damaged reactors when gray smoke rose from the site. There was no immediate explanation for the smoke, but authorities had said earlier that pressure was building up at the No. 3 reactor.
The amount of smoke later receded and Japan’s nuclear safety agency said there was no significant change in radiation levels at the site.
The March 11 earthquake and tsunami left more than 21,000 people dead or missing and will cost an already beleaguered economy some $250 billion, making it the world’s costliest ever natural disaster.
However, he said there was no evidence of contaminated food from Fukushima reaching other countries.
Tap water
Japan’s health ministry has urged some residents near the plant to stop drinking tap water after high levels of radioactive iodine were detected.
Cases of contaminated vegetables and milk have already stoked anxiety despite assurances from officials that the levels are not dangerous. The government has prohibited the sale of raw milk from Fukushima prefecture and spinach from a nearby area.
There were no major reports of contaminated food in Tokyo, a city of about 13 million people. City officials however said higher-than-standard levels of iodine were found in an edible form of chrysanthemum.
Japan is a net importer of food, but has substantial exports – mainly fruit, vegetables, dairy products and seafood – with its biggest markets in Hong Kong, China and the United States.
The prospects of a nuclear power plant meltdown in the world’s third-biggest economy and its key position in global supply chains rattled investors worldwide last week and prompted rare joint currency intervention by the G7 group of rich nations to stabilise markets.
Tokyo’s markets were closed for a holiday on Monday. The Nikkei index shed 10 per cent last week, wiping $350 billion off market capitalisation, and at one point had lost as much as 20 per cent in value.
In a much-needed boost for the battered market, billionaire investor Warren Buffett said the earthquake and tsunami were an “enormous blow” but should not prompt the selling of Japanese shares. Instead, he called events a “buying opportunity”.
Situation critical at plant
At Fukushima, 300 engineers have worked around the clock inside an evacuation zone to contain the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986.

Brazil flood death toll tops 500

Rescuers are searching through layers of mud for survivors and bodies after heavy rains caused landslides and torrents to slice through three towns near Rio de Janeiro, killing at least 500 people.

Walls of thick, muddy gunge cascaded past apartment blocks in several towns, flowing into single-storey homes and overturning cars as they surged down the hills sweeping along everything in their path.

Freakish storms early Wednesday (local time) in the mountainous area just north of Rio de Janeiro dumped the equivalent of a month's rain in just a few hours, sending mudslides slicing through towns and hamlets, destroying homes, roads and bridges and knocking out telephone and power lines.
Local officials and media in the worst affected towns of Novo Friburgo, Teresopolis and Petropolis put the death toll at 432.

President Dilma Rousseff, clad in black rubber boots, walked the mud-covered cobblestone streets of Novo Friburgo, where 201 deaths were recorded.

The death toll was expected to rise further as rescuers arrived in remote hamlets, many cut off to all but helicopter access.

Tropical rains, common at this time of year, intensified as a cold front moved in, unleashing the tragedy before dawn, while families slept.

"In eight hours... it rained as much as for the entire month," said Paulo Canedo, a hydrologist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

The deluge "caused avalanches of rocks and soil that carried everything down with them, picking up houses," he said.

As weather forecasters warned of more rain in the hours and days ahead, rescuers aided by desperate residents clawed through rubble and mud looking for survivors or bodies.

GloboNews television said 175 people had died in Teresopolis, while officials in Petropolis counted 39 dead.

Another 17 bodies were discovered Thursday in a village called Sumidouro.

Churches and police stations were turned into makeshift morgues, the smell of decomposing corpses heavy in the warm air. Thousands of survivors took refuge in shelters.

But among the despair were a few triumphs.

The scenes of crumbled towns and the stench of death transformed the Serrana region, a popular historical getaway for wealthy Rio residents seeking cooler temperatures.

The disaster also provided the first big test for Ms Rousseff, who only took power on January 1.

Her government has released hundreds of millions of dollars in initial emergency aid and sent seven tons of medical supplies.

The last major natural disaster in Brazil was in March 1967, when mudslides killed 300 people in a coastal town called Caraguatatuba, Brazilian media said.

By way of comparison, Brazil recorded 473 deaths for all of last year from heavy rains.