At least 85 dead, hundreds injured as tornadoes, thunderstorms hit South

Killer tornadoes and thunderstorms tore through the southern United States on Wednesday, leaving at least 85 dead, hundreds injured and a wide swath of destruction in their wake.

Hardest hit was Alabama where 61 people died, most when a mile-wide tornado gouged its way across the state.

Storms also killed 11 in Mississippi, four in Georgia and one in Tennessee

In Tuscaloosa, where at least 15 people were killed, some neighborhoods were reduced to rubble and drivers abandoned cars in streets littered with downed trees and power lines.

"What we faced today was massive damage on a scale we have not seen in Tuscaloosa in quite some time," said Walter Maddox, mayor of the 83,000 population town.

One hospital emergency room took in 100 people.

A Birmingham family was trapped briefly in their home by uprooted trees.

"As I was grabbing my daughter and running to the closet, they hit the house," said Lisa Hey, who estimated 90% of the trees in her neighborhood were toppled.

"Teams have pre-deployed to begin debris removal and search and rescue operations as soon as conditions permit," said Alabama emergency agency spokeswoman Lauree Ashcom in a statement.

The monster twisters forced three nuclear reactors in Alabama to shut, leaving about 245,000 households and businesses in Alabama without power.

A Louisiana police officer was killed at a campsite in Choctaw County, Miss., when a tree fell onto his tent as he used his body to shield his 9-year-old daughter, said Kim Korthuis, a supervisor with the National Park Service.

"She wasn't hurt, just scared and soaking wet," said Greg Maier, a campsite volunteer.

Much of northern Texas, including areas recently charred by wildfires, also was pounded by tornadoes and severe thunderstorms.

"Numerous homes have been damaged or destroyed," said Lt. Chuck Allen, emergency management coordinator in Van Zandt County, located about halfway between Dallas and Tyler.

This week's storms have added to the violent weather that has pummeled much of the south this month.

Two weeks ago, at least 47 people died as storms tore a wide path from Oklahoma to North Carolina.

The latest wild weather - a nearly 600 mile stretch - began in the Midwest plains, moved through the south and Wednesday night was headed as far north as Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

The National Weather Service said as many as 21 states could be hit by severe weather before things clear up Friday.

About 74 tornadoes were reported Wednesday along with hundreds of reports of wind and hail damage.

Roads were washed out or blocked by fallen trees and power lines, houses, schools and businesses were flattened, flooded or set on fire by lightning and wind-whipped debris became deadly flying projectiles throughout the four-state hot zone.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes in Missouri after levees failed to hold back swollen rivers.

"I'm just glad my family is safe," said Chris Pigg, who spent the night at a shelter with his wife and daughter and wasn't sure if he'd have a home to return to after the Black River breached the levee in Poplar Bluff.

Governors called out the National Guard to help with rescue and cleanup operations, and states of emergency were declared in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Oklahoma.

Japan dumps radioactive water into sea

Japan  radiation eating seaweed

Waterworks investigators listen for underground leaks in Ofunato,Iwate prefecture on April 4, 2011.Japan has battled to prevent full reactor meltdowns at its tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant and poured thousands of tons of water onto overheating fuel rods,a stop-gap measure that has created highly radioactive run-off.

The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant began releasing about 11,500 tons of radioactive water into the sea Monday evening so that it could make room in storage tanks for even more severely contaminated water.

Some 10,000 tons of the water being released into the ocean wasbeing taken from a communal storage facility near the No. 4 reactor. Another 1,500 tons was being released from the vicinity ofthe No. 5 and 6 reactors — which have been less troubled than reactors Nos. 1 through 4. The amount of water being released isequivalent to more than four Olympic-size swimming pools.

Although the water being released had levels of radioactive iodine 131 more than 100 times the legal limit allowed for sea discharge, the government approved the release as an"emergency" measure so that water with 100,000 times more radiation than the water found ina normally functioning reactor canbe removed from the basement of the turbine building at reactor No. 2 and stored somewhere on the site.

Even as the government assertedthat the release of the radioactive water into the sea would not pose an immediate threat to humans, health ministryofficial Taku Ohara said the ministry was considering drawing up radioactivity food-safety standards for fish after high radiation levels were detected in a sand lance, a bottom-feeding fish, caught off the coast of Ibaraki prefecture.

Nuclear experts have assumed that radioactive iodine, which has a brief half-life, would become diluted in the ocean and decay too quickly to be detected in fish,but Monday's finding has raised doubts about that, said Ohara.

According to the health ministry, the sand lance had 4,080 bequerels per kilogram of radioactive iodine.
"We think the level found poses no immediate risk to people's health, but the point is moot anyway because all sand lance caught in Ibaraki were disposed of," said Ohara. By comparison, the level of radioactive iodine in the fish was twice as high as the limit for vegetables. There are no standards for radioactivity in meat, eggs, fish and grains.

After more than three weeks of cooling the disabled Fukushima reactors by spraying them with thousands of tons of water using fire trucks, concrete pumpers andhelicopters, Tokyo Electric Power Co. faces a growing problem of what to do with the vast amounts of contaminated water.

Removing the water from turbine buildings and other structures is vital to allow workers to restore cooling functions to the facilities. But with limited facilities for storing the water, the utility and the government are now considering options including putting it into a "floating island" offshore. Also being discussed is the installation of an undersea barrier, usually used to contain old spills, that might slow the radioactive water's move offshore.

Tepco reported no success Monday in its efforts to stop highly radioactive water from seeping from a pit near the No. 2 reactor into the ocean. The utilitybelieved that the leak was comingfrom an 8-inch crack and attempted to seal it with a polymer, sawdust and shredded newspaper. When that failed, the utility dumped some white bath salts into a pipe near the pit to attempt to trace the flow of the water, but the colored water hadyet to show up in the sea.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano announced that the government would modify its protocol on restricting vegetable sales from prefectures where significant amounts of radiation have been detected. Instead of banning shipments from an entire prefecture, radiation levels henceforth will be monitored weekly at the level of municipalities, and if the detected levels fall below government limitsfor three consecutive weeks, then shipments will be allowed.

Farmers have been pressing the government to ease up on its restrictions, but the new procedures raised questions about whether municipalities werecapable of carrying out thorough checks. Some farmers complained that the weekly testing would not be frequent enough and said their produce was still likely to goto rot.

In Fukushima prefecture, officials announced plans for monitoring radiation levels at 1,400 schools starting Tuesday; a new academicyear is to begin Wednesday and many parents are worried about their children being exposed to radiation.
Fukushima officials also have begun checking radiation levels ofproducts manufactured within theprefecture. Many businesses are nervous that their goods might be rejected by buyers unless they are certified as being free of contamination.
In the town of Namie, which sits northwest of the Fukushima plantjust beyond the 18-mile perimeterwithin which authorities have urged people to stay indoors or consider evacuating, high levels ofcumulative radiation were recorded over an 11-day period beginning March 23, the government announced.

The accumulated radiation was 10.3 millisieverts over 11 days, assuming that a person stayed outdoors 24 hours a day. With the government saying that it could easily take months to bring the Fukushima plant under control, the readings are raising fresh questions about the dangers of radiation over a longer period and whether the government's evacuation perimeter is wide enough. Exposure to 100 millisieverts is believed to raise one's risk of cancer by 0.5 per cent.
Despite widespread concern aboutradiation from Fukushima, the public appears to be divided over whether the government should review its use of nuclear power. The results of an opinion poll by the national Yomiuri newspaper published Monday showed that nearly half those surveyed said they favored maintaining the current number of nuclear power plants, while almost a third of respondents said they wanted the government to cut back.

The poll also showed that voter support for Prime Minister Naoto Kan's Cabinet has risen slightly, to30 per cent from 24 per cent in March. But many voters — 69 per cent — said Kan wasn't exhibiting his leadership, and 19 per cent said they wanted him to quit soon.

The National Police Agency said the death toll in the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunamistood at 12,259 as of Monday evening, with more than 15,000 people still listed as missing.
In a bit of positive news, national broadcaster NHK reported that a dog rescued Saturday by coast guard officers from the roof of a destroyed house floating more than a mile off the coast of northeastern Japan had been reunited with its owner.

The owner of the dog, a 2-year-old mutt named Ban, said she sawthe news of the rescue on TV over the weekend and contacted authorities immediately.