Fukushima Status Update

Power has now been restored to some parts of the Fukushima plant, reports the BBC's Chris Hogg - though reports suggest the power lines to the cooling systems will only now be switched on on Sunday, after system tests.

"If the power is turned on without checks it may malfunction. They are checking the facility now. If no problem is found at the facility today, the power will resume as early as tomorrow [Sunday]."

If engineers are unable to cool the reactor, Reuters says, the last option would be entombing the plant with concrete and sand to prevent a catastrophic radiation leak, the method used at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986.

Water-spraying operations have resumed at the number 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear plant, NHK reports. AFP quotes Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa as saying: "Instead of dumping water in phases we would like to set up an operation that will allow us to continuously inject water." So far such efforts to cool the reactors at the stricken plant have taken place intermittently, AFP explains.

The UN nuclear watchdog the IAEA says Japan has ordered a halt to all sales of food products from Fukushima prefecture, Reuters reports. It comes after the chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said radiation levels in milk and spinach from the region of Fukushima nuclear plant exceeded safety standards - though the radiation levels recorded still pose no serious risk to human health.

Outside the exclusion zone around Fukushima nuclear plant, radiation levels are absolutely miniscule and nothing to worry about, points out the BBC's Tim Willcox in Tokyo. That's interesting, he says, given how many foreign nationals have left Tokyo and other parts of the country.

Midori Horikawa in Tokyo, writes: "Ungrounded panic and paranoia about the situation in Fukushima are making Tokyo a less than liveable place at the moment. I fear that the alarmist media and reactions of foreign governments are mostly to blame for this mass paranoia. Much of the non-Japanese media's reporting is based on pure speculations, prompting foreigners to leave Tokyo... With foreigners leaving the country, however, even the Japanese are growing distrustful of 'the government stories'. I feel that the whole nuclear scare is just a side show to the very real damage brought by the earthquake and tsunami.

Pete Payne, an American living in Gunma prefecture, also thinks some journalists have been overdramatising events in Japan. He tells the BBC: "There's a big difference between how some outside journalists have been presenting the situation and the reality here is. Some US journalists in particular have been using the most sensationalist language as if an imminent catastrophe is going to affect the whole country. People in Japan are concerned of course, but life goes on. We are running a business, shipping bento boxes. We've been in touch with all our distributors across the country - they are all open to business. The post office has been functioning every day."

The Oshika peninsula in Miyagi prefecture has moved 5.3m (17.4 feet) and dropped 1.2m since the devastating March 11 quake - both records for land mass movements in Japan - government data show, according to Kyodo.

BBC