Friday, March 18, 2011


The see-through dress worn by Kate Middleton at a charity fashion show at St Andrews University has been sold for £65,000 plus £13,000 buyer's fees.
London auctioneer Kerry Taylor had estimated the knitted dress would fetch between £8,000 and £10,000.
The prince was in the audience when Miss Middleton hit the catwalk wearing the dress with black lingerie at the university in Fife in 2002.
The pair, who met at St Andrews, will marry at Westminster Abbey next month.
The garment cost the mystery buyer a total of £78,000.
A man at the auction bought the dress on behalf of an individual he would only name as "Nick from Jersey".
He said of the buyer: "He thinks it's an iconic piece and is very happy with the purchase."
'Iconic piece'
Ms Taylor had started the auction at £20,000, with plenty of interest via phone bids, but when the price reached £50,000 it became a two-way battle between the man in the room and some pre-registered bidders.
The dress was sold by Charlotte Todd, who created it while studying fashion design at the University of the West of England in 2000.
She initially intended it to be a skirt, but the show's organisers decided it would be worn as a dress.
Mrs Todd, 31, who works in Bristol as an aquarium retail manager, said after the sale: "I'm completely shocked, I need to sit down and get my head round it.
"I just wanted to get out and get some fresh air during the sale. I wasn't expecting it. I was turning round to see who was at the back of the room and what was happening.
"But I didn't like to get my hopes up, I was thinking it might not sell. I wasn't thinking of a sum of money in my head."
She said she and her husband would probably put the money towards buying a house before joking: "Maybe I should rustle up some more dresses?"


More at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12764123

Thursday, March 17, 2011

By the CNN Wire Staff
Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan turned helicopters, fire trucks and police water cannons on the No. 3 reactor at the quake-ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and the pool housing its spent fuel Thursday in its latest attempt to stave off a nuclear disaster.

Military helicopters began dumping water on the reactor Thursday morning, with police and fire trucks opening up after 7 p.m. (6 a.m. ET). Japan's Defense Ministry said the first effort lasted 40 minutes, and the Tokyo Electric Power Company said the efforts would continue throughout the night in order to keep the reactor and its adjacent spent fuel pool from overheating.

"In order to cool the spent fuel storage pool, we have carried out water drop operations and the spraying of water from the ground," TEPCO officials said at a Thursday night news conference. "This needs to continue in several ways. Therefore, we will continue to ask for cooperation of the involved people so we can carry out continuously. The helicopter water dumping operation is something we have asked government to provide us help with, and also the spraying of water."


Friday's earthquake and tsunami has led to damage at four of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, located on the northern coast of the Japanese island of Honshu. TEPCO also was attempting to restore power to the facility, but those efforts had not been completed by nightfall Thursday, the company said.


Helicopters made four passes in about a 20-minute span Thursday morning, dropping 7.5 tons of seawater each time on the facility's No. 3 reactor in order to cool its overheated fuel pool. Experts believe that boiling steam rising from that pool, which contains at least partially exposed fuel rods, may be releasing radiation into the atmosphere.

More on CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/17/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T1

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

FUKUSHIMA, Japan – Japan suspended operations to prevent a stricken nuclear plant from melting down Wednesday after a surge in radiation made it too dangerous for workers to remain at the facility.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said work on dousing reactors with water was disrupted by the need to withdraw.
Earlier officials said 70 percent of fuel rods at one of the six reactors at the plant were significantly damaged in the aftermath of Friday's calamitous earthquake and tsunami.
News reports said 33 percent of fuel rods were also damaged at another reactor. Officials said they would use helicopters and fire trucks to spray water in a desperate effort to prevent further radiation leaks and to cool down the reactors.
The nuclear crisis has triggered international alarm and partly overshadowed the human tragedy caused by Friday's double disaster, which pulverized Japan's northeastern coastline, killing an estimated 10,000 people.
Authorities have tried frantically since last Friday's earthquake and tsunami to avert an environmental catastrophe at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex in northeastern Japan, 170 miles (270 kilometers) north Tokyo.
The government has ordered some 140,000 people in the vicinity to stay indoors. A little radiation was also detected in Tokyo, 150 miles (240 kilometers) to the south and triggered panic buying of food and water.
There are six reactors at the plant, and three that were operating at the time have been rocked by explosions. The one still on fire was offline at the time of the magnitude 9.0 quake, Japan's most powerful on record.
The Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency estimated that 70 percent of the rods have been damaged at the No. 1 reactor.
Japan's national news agency, Kyodo, said that 33 percent of the fuel rods at the No. 2 reactor were damaged and that the cores of both reactors were believed to have partially melted.
"We don't know the nature of the damage," said Minoru Ohgoda, spokesman for the country's Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency. "It could be either melting, or there might be some holes in them."
Meanwhile, the outer housing of the containment vessel at the No. 4 unit erupted in flames early Wednesday, said Hajimi Motujuku, a spokesman for the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Japan's nuclear safety agency said fire and smoke could no longer be seen at Unit 4, but that it was unable to confirm that the blaze had been put out.
Agencies

Monday, March 14, 2011

Japan Earthquake Effect

By ERIC TALMADGE and SHINO YUASA, Associated Press
Photo by Yomiuri Shimbun, AFP/Getty Images

SOMA, Japan – The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant Monday, sending a massive column of smoke into the air and wounding 11 workers. Hours later, the U.S. said it had shifted its offshore forces away from the plant after detecting low-level radioactive contamination.

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore when it detected the radiation, which U.S. officials said was about the same as one month's normal exposure to natural background radiation in the environment.

It was not clear if the radiation had leaked during Monday's explosion. That blast was felt 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, but the plant's operator said radiation levels at the reactor were still within legal limits.

The explosion at the plant's Unit 3, which authorities have been frantically trying to cool after a system fa

ilure in the wake of Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami, triggered an order for hundreds of people to stay indoors, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. The two disasters left at least 10,000 people dead.

Operators knew an explosion was a possibility as they struggled to reduce pressure inside the reactor containment vessel, but apparently felt they had no choice if they wanted to avoid a complete meltdown. In the end, the hydrogen in the released steam mixed with oxygen in the atmosphere and set off the blast.

Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, said radiation levels at Unit 3 were well under the levels where a nuclear operator must file a report to the government.

A similar explosion occurred Saturday at the plant's Unit 1, injuring four workers and causing mass evacuations.

Shortly after Monday's explosion, Tokyo Electric warned it had lost the ability to cool Unit 2. Takako Kitajima, a company official, said plant workers were preparing to inject seawater into the unit to cool the reactor, a move that could lead to an explosion there as well.

The Unit 3 reactor's inner containment vessel holding nuclear rods was intact, Edano said, allaying some fears of the risk to the environment and public. TV footage of the building housing the reactor appeared to show damage similar to Saturday's blast, with outer walls shorn off, leaving only a skeletal frame.

More than 180,000 people have evacuated the area in recent days, and up to 160 may have been exposed to radiation — pouring misery onto those already devastated by the twin disasters.

While Japan has aggressively prepared for years for major earthquakes, reinforcing buildings and running drills, the impact of the tsunami — which came so quickly that not many people managed to flee to higher ground — was severe.

By Monday, officials were clearly overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis, with millions of people having spent three nights without water, food or heat in near-freezing temperatures. At least 1.4 million households had gone without water since the quake struck and some 1.9 million households were without electricity.

Officials in one devastated town said they were running out of body bags.

Officials have declared states of emergency at six Fukushima reactors, where Friday's twin disasters knocked out the main cooling systems and backup generators. Three are at Dai-ichi and three at the nearby Fukushima Daini complex.

Most attention, though, has been focused on Dai-ichi units 1 and 3, where operators have been funneling in seawater in a last-ditch measure to cool the reactors. A complete meltdown — the melting of the radioactive core — could release radioactive contaminants into the environment and pose major, widespread health risks.

Edano said no Fukushima reactor was near that point, and he was confident of escaping the worst scenarios.

International scientists say there are serious dangers but little risk of a Chernobyl-style catastrophe. Chernobyl, they note, had no outer containment shell.

"The likelihood there will be a huge fire like at Chernobyl or a major environmental release like at Chernobyl, I think that's basically impossible," said James F. Stubbins, a nuclear energy professor at the University of Illinois.

But despite official assurances, many residents expressed fear over the situation.

"First I was worried about the quake," said Kenji Koshiba, a construction worker who lives near the plant. "Now I'm worried about radiation." He spoke at an emergency center in Koriyama, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) from the most troubled reactors and 125 miles (190 kilometers) north of Tokyo.

Overall, more than 1,500 people had been scanned for radiation exposure in the area, officials said.

The U.N. nuclear agency said a state of emergency was also declared Sunday at another complex, the Onagawa power plant, after higher-than-permitted levels of radiation were measured there. It said Japan informed it that all three of those reactors there were under control.

Four nuclear complexes in northeastern Japan have reported some damage from the quake or the tsunami.

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