U.S. and British ships and submarines launched the first phase of a missile assault on Libyan

WASHINGTON – U.S. and British ships and submarines launched the first phase of a missile assault on Libyan air defenses Saturday and a senior American defense official said it was believed substantial damage was inflicted.

In the strikes, 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired at more than 20 coastal targets to clear the way for air patrols to ground Libya's air force.

While U.S. defense officials cautioned that it was too early to fully gauge the impact of the onslaught, the official said that given the precision targeting of the Navy's cruise missiles, they felt that Libya's air defenses suffered a good deal of damage.

Explosions continued to rock the coastal cities, including Tripoli. Navy Vice Adm. Wiliam E. Gortney, director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, would not discuss future operations But defense officials said military action was likely to continue.

The official spoke on grounds of anonymity because the ongoing mission.

In announcing the mission during a visit to Brazil, President Barack Obama said he was reluctant to resort to force but was convinced it was necessary to save the lives of civilians. He reiterated that he would not send American ground troops to Libya.

"We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy," he said in Brasilia.

While U.S. defense officials said it was too early to gauge the impact of the onslaught, one senior official said that given the precision targeting of the Navy's cruise missiles, they believe Libya's air defenses suffered a good deal of damage.

It was clear the U.S. intended to limit its role in the Libya intervention, focusing first on disabling or otherwise silencing Libyan air defenses, and then leaving it to European and perhaps Arab countries to enforce a no-fly zone over the North African nation.

Gortney told reporters the cruise missile assault was the "leading edge" of a coalition campaign dubbed Operation Odyssey Dawn. Its aim: prevent Moammar Gadhafi's forces from inflicting more violence on civilians -- particularly in and around the rebel stronghold of Benghazi -- and degrading the Libyan military's ability to contest a no-fly zone.

"This is not an outcome the U.S. or any of our partners sought," Obama said from Brazil, where he is starting a five-day visit to Latin America. "Our consensus was strong, and our resolve is clear. The people of Libya must be protected, and in the absence of an immediate end to the violence against civilians our coalition is prepared to act, and to act with urgency."

A chief target of Saturday's cruise missile attack was Libya's SA-5 surface-to-air missiles, which are considered a moderate threat to some allied aircraft. Libya's overall air defenses are based on older Soviet technology but Gortney called them capable and a potential threat to allied aircraft.

Also targeted: early warning radars and unspecified communications facilities, Gortney said. The U.S. military has extensive recent experience in such combat missions; U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft repeatedly attacked Iraq's air defenses during the 1990s while enforcing a no-fly zone over Iraq's Kurdish north.

Cruise missiles are the weapon of first choice in such campaigns; they do not put pilots at risk, and they use navigational technologies that provide good precision.

The first Tomahawk cruise missiles struck at 3 p.m. EDT, Gortney said, after a one-hour flight from the U.S. and British vessels on station in the Mediterranean.

They were fired from five U.S. ships — the guided-missile destroyers USS Stout and USS Barry, and three submarines, USS Providence, USS Scranton and USS Florida.

The U.S. has at least 11 naval vessels in the Mediterranean, including three submarines, two destroyers, two amphibious warfare ships and the USS Mount Whitney, a command-and-control vessel that is the flagship of the Navy's 6th Fleet. Also in the area are Navy P-3 and EP-3 surveillance aircraft, officials said.

Gortney initially had said that it could take as long as 12 hours to assess the effectiveness of Saturday's strikes. Then a high-altitude Global Hawk unmanned surveillance plane would overfly the target areas to get a more precise view, the admiral said. He would not say how long the attacks on Libyan air defenses would last, but he stressed that Saturday's assault with cruise missiles was the first phase of a multi-stage mission.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a statement late Saturday, said, "I support the actions taken today by our allies, with the support of several Arab countries, to prevent the tyrant Moammar Qaddafi from perpetrating further atrocities on the people of Libya."

"And I support the president's decision to deploy U.S. assets to help those allies to enforce a no-fly zone to protect Libyan civilians as laid out in the United Nations resolution," the Nevada Democrat said. "This U.S. military action was not taken lightly, and it was done in concert with a broad international coalition."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was scheduled to fly to Russia on Saturday afternoon to begin a week-long overseas trip, postponed his departure for 24 hours. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates decided he should remain in Washington to monitor developments in Libya at the outset of U.S. strikes.

Gates had been skeptical of getting involved in Libya's civil war, telling Congress earlier this month that taking out Libya's air defenses was tantamount to war. Others have worried that the mission could put the U.S. on a slippery slope to deeper involvement in yet another Muslim country — on top of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hours after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton attended an international conference in Paris that endorsed military action against Gadhafi, the U.S. and Britain kicked off their attacks.

At a news conference in Paris, Clinton said Gadhafi had left the world no choice but to intervene urgently and forcefully to protect further loss of civilian life.

"We have every reason to fear that, left unchecked, Gadhafi would commit unspeakable atrocities," she told reporters.

Clinton said there was no evidence that Gadhafi's forces were respecting an alleged cease-fire they proclaimed and the time for action was now.

"Our assessment is that the aggressive action by Gadhafi's forces continues in many parts of the country," she said. "We have seen no real effort on the part of the Gadhafi forces to abide by a cease-fire."

In addition to the three submarines and two destroyers, the U.S. Navy ships in the Mediterranean include two amphibious warships, the USS Kearsarge and USS Ponce, and a command-and-control ship, the USS Mount Whitney.

New power lines connected to Fukushima nuclear plant

New power lines were connected to the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant early Saturday and electricity can be supplied, Tokyo Electric Power says, according to Reuters.

"Once we have an electric power supply, we will go slowly and carefully through the plant checking the various machines to see what is working and to also avoid short-circuiting them," aNuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official said at a briefing.

Agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said workers were trying to restore power to the plant's No. 1 and No. 2 reactors Saturday and at the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors by Sunday, Kyodo News says.

Some of the plant's power distribution boards are covered with water from the tsunami caused by last Friday's magnitude-9 earthquake, and TEPCO will use makeshift replacement equipment. Even with electricity restored, it is unlikely devices will be reactivated at least until Saturday as equipment needs to be checked.

The cores of the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 reactors may have partially melted, and radiation leaks continue from the reactors and spent fuel pools.

Nishiyama noted the difficulty in assessing radiation data to determine the effectiveness of airborne water drops and water cannons to douse exposed spent-fuel rods. ''We need to observe the situation a little more to determine whether the mission was a success or not,'' he said.

After days of news reporting one explosion after another at the Fukushima nuclear plant, there is finally a break in reports of new explosions.

Radiation levels remain high around the plant.

All efforts are being focused on restoring water levels at the sites spent nuclear fuel storage pools. There is an emerging experts consensus that there is only a day or two to raise water levels in spent nuclear fuel pools to avert a much larger catastrophe.

Cooling efforts

Two large Chinook helicopters were used to drop water on the spent fuel pools in reactors 3 and 4 at about 10am. Originally, 40-50 drops of 7.5 tons each were reported to be planned, but only four have been conducted so far: three drops on reactor three and one on reactor 4, after which the helicopters pulled back to limit crews' radiation exposure.Out of the total amount of 30 tons, 8 tons were believed to have made it to the pools.

More drops are being considered. The police have brought in 11 special vehicles equipped with water cannons and 4-ton water tanks. These are being used to spray water into the spent fuel pools. Operation has been reported for hours to be starting shortly. Damage to the road and debris have prevented access by heavy vehicles until this morning.

A new power line is being installed to provide grid power to pumps and other equipment; it is expected to be completed some time this afternoon.

The spent fuel pools have an area of roughly 150-200m2, so raising the water level by one meter requires about 200 tons of water.

At best, the spraying seems to be buying some time until more efficient cooling methods can be put in place.

Radiation levels

Levels above reactors reported as 4.13 “mSv” at 1000 feet and 87.7 “mSv” at 300 feet. The statements by the government and the Tepco spokespeople seem to contradict the reported values. The helicopters are equipped with lead panels and crews wearing protective gear, but were unable to hover above the reactors to improve accuracy and had to pull back after only 15 minutes, yet the government-authorised emergency dose limit of 250 mSv/h would allow the crews to stay at 1000 feet for 48 hours, even without shielding.

Ibaraki’s  (130 km south of Dalichi) radiation readings on Tuesday just before the monitors went "under survey" are posted online. The readings measure at 3.4 micro-Sv/h = 30 milli-Sv per year. Current value is 0.92 micro-Sv/h = 8 mSv/y. In Saitama and Tochigi, close to Tokyo, readings of 1.2 and 1.3 microSv/h were measured yesterday.

Heightened fears and new evacuations

The US and French nuclear agencies warned yesterday of the possibility of a major catastrophe. The Japanese government has evacuated at least an additional 10,000 people from the 20-30km zone around the nuclear plant.

There are still tens of thousands of people within the zone, as the 71,000 strong city of Minamisoma falls within the zone. The evacuated people will be given radiation scans. The US Embassy in Japan issued a warning last night to US citizens within 80-kilometer to evacuate as a precautionary measure. The US has chartered aircraft to help Americans leave Japan and had authorised the voluntary departure of family members of diplomatic staff in Tokyo, Nagoya and Yokohama -- about 600 people. China moved to evacuate its citizens from northeastern Japan earlier in the week.

Nuke plant get trouble after earthquake; 3,000 evacuated

TOKYO: Japan's massive earthquake caused a power outage that disabled a nuclear reactor's cooling system, triggering evacuation orders for about 3,000 residents as the government declared its first-ever state of emergency at a nuclear plant. 

Japan's nuclear safety agency said pressure inside one of six boiling water reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant had risen to 1. 5 times the level considered normal. 

Hours after the evacuation order, the government announced that the plant in northeastern Japan will release slightly radioactive vapour from the unit to lower the pressure in an effort to protect it from a possible meltdown. 

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the amount of radioactive element in the vapour would be "very small" and would not affect the environment or human health. 

"With evacuation in place and the ocean-bound wind, we can ensure the safety," he said at a televised news conference early today. 

After the quake triggered a power outage, a backup generator also failed and the cooling system was unable to supply water to cool the 460-megawatt No 1 reactor, though at least one backup cooling system was being used. 

The reactor core remains hot even after a shutdown. The agency said plant workers are scrambling to restore cooling water supply at the plant but there is no prospect for immediate success. 

Edano said the 40-year-old plant was not leaking radiation. 

The plant is in Onahama city, about 270 kilometres northeast of Tokyo. 

If the outage in the cooling system persists, eventually radiation could leak out into the environment, and, in the worst case, could cause a reactor meltdown, a nuclear safety agency official said on condition of anonymity, citing sensitivity of the issue. 

Another official at the nuclear safety agency, Yuji Kakizaki, said that plant workers were cooling the reactor with a secondary cooling system, which is not as effective as the regular cooling method. 

Kakizaki said officials have confirmed that the emergency cooling system, the last-ditch cooling measure to prevent the reactor from the meltdown, is intact and could kick in if needed. 

"That's as a last resort, and we have not reached that stage yet," Kakizaki added. 

Japan's nuclear safety agency said the evacuation, ordered by the local government of Fukushima, affects at least 2,800 people. 

Edano said residents were told to stay at least three kilometres from the plant and to stay inside buildings. 

He said both the state of emergency and evacuation order are precautionary measures.

Tsunami hits japan after earthquake.

A powerful earthquake measuring magnitude 8.9 hit northern Japan on Friday afternoon, causing extensive destruction to property and lives in the area. The quake struck 20 kilometers deep off the Sanriku coast in Iwate Prefecture at 2:46 p.m. and lasted several minutes. A tsunami caused by the quake struck Kamaishi, Miyako and Yamadamachi prefectures, washing away houses and causing major damage.
The most powerful earthquake to hit Japan on record struck about 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo. It has killed over 350 people so far and the death toll is expected to rise significantly. A state of emergency was declared at a nuclear power plant but no radiation leaks have been reported yet. The magnitude of the quake triggered tsunami warnings across the pacific to New Zealand, Australia, North and South America.
The quake also triggered a massive blaze at an oil refinery in Ichihara city in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo, engulfing storage tanks. There were reports of about 20 people injured in Tokyo after the roof of a hall collapsed on to a graduation ceremony. Residents and workers in Tokyo rushed out of apartment buildings and office blocks and gathered in parks and open spaces as aftershocks continued to hit.
Some reports quote Japanese police as saying 200 to 300 bodies have been found in the port city of Sendai. The damage is too extensive for any accurate numbers to surface. The quake, measured at 8.9 by the US Geological Survey, hit at 1446 local time (0546 GMT) at a depth of about 24km.
The Red Cross in Geneva warned that the waves could be higher in some Pacific islands, Reuters news agency said. Coastal areas in the Philippines, and other parts of the Pacific were evacuated ahead of the tsunami’s expected arrival. The first waves, under a meter high, reached Hawaii late Friday. New Zealand however, soon downgraded its alert to a marine threat, meaning only strong and unusual currents were expected.