Taufan melanda, payung tiada guna

KESAN TAUFAN: Seorang lelaki tidak sempat mengelak terkena pukulan pecahan ombak di kawasan pantai bandar Hangzhou, wilayah Zhejiang, Sabtu lalu, akibat taufan Usagi. - Foto REUTERS

BEIJING: Taufan Usagi mengorbankan sekurang-kurangnya 25 orang setelah ia melanda kawasan selatan China.

Ia juga menyebabkan sistem pengangkutan rantau itu huru-hara dan puluhan ribu penumpang syarikat penerbangan terkandas di Hongkong semalam.

Jepun peringati ulang tahun kedua bencana gempa dan tsunami

TOKYO: Jepun semalam memperingati ulang tahun kedua bencana berganda - gempa bumi dan tsunami - yang melanda negara itu dan menyebabkan hampir 19,000 mati atau hilang.

Dalam upacara di Tokyo dan di bandar-bandar gersang sepanjang kawasan pantai timur laut negara itu, mereka yang berkumpul tunduk dan bertafakur seketika bagi menandakan detik 2.46 petang pada 11 Mac 2011 apabila gempa sekuat 9.0 pada Skala Richter - yang terkuat dalam sejarah Jepun - melanda negara itu.

Volcano spews ash on Chile-Argentina border

Smoke and ash rising from the Copahue volcano, which is located in the border Andean region between Argentina and Chile, are seen from Caviahue in the Argentina patagonian province of Neuquen, Dec 22, 2012. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

SANTIAGO (AFP) - Southern Chile's Copahue Volcano belched plumes of ash skyward on Saturday, prompting authorities there and in neighbouring Argentina to issue a low-level alert.

Storm Bopha returns to Philippines, rain and floods expected

A resident covers his nose as he walks past typhoon Bopha's victims which are left unattended at New Bataan township, Compostela Valley in southern Philippines on Saturday Dec 8, 2012. -- PHOTO: AP

MANILA (AFP) - Heavy rain brought flooding fears in the north of the storm-battered Philippines as Typhoon Bopha returned on Sunday, days after slamming into the south of the country and leaving almost 1,400 dead or missing.

Philippines typhoon kills 325, hundreds missing

MANILA (AFP) - At least 325 people were killed and hundreds remain missing in the Philippines following the deadliest typhoon to hit the country this year, the civil defence chief said on Dec 6.

"We have 325 dead and this is expected to rise because many more are missing", civil defence chief Benito Ramos told a news conference.

He did not give a fresh total for the number of missing after Typhoon Bopha ravaged the southern island of Mindanao on Dec 4.

More aftershocks hit NZ

Big aftershocks are continuing to hit the earthquake-weary city of Christchurch, raising fears that worse could be on the way. -- PHOTO: AP

WELLINGTON - BIG aftershocks are continuing to hit the earthquake-weary city of Christchurch, raising fears that worse could be on the way.

A pair of aftershocks woke many residents early on Wednesday, with the larger measuring magnitude-5.0. In the afternoon, a second smaller cluster hit.

Japan plans new tsunami wall at nuclear plant

This video image, taken by a remote controled drone T-Hawk on April 21, 2011 shows the north side area of the first reactor building of TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. -- PHOTO: AFP / HO / TEPCO

TOKYO - THE operator of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant will build a wall to defend it against future tsunamis, reports said on Monday, as public confidence slipped in the government's handling of the disaster.

Tsunami-hit Japanese whalers set sail for hunt

This picture taken on March 24, 2011 shows the whaling ship 'Taisho Maru No. 28' grounded near the port of Ayukawa in Miyagi prefecture. -- PHOTO: AFP

TOKYO - JAPANESE whalers on Tuesday launched their annual coastal hunt with five crew from the tsunami-devastated whaling town of Ayukawa joining their first voyage since the March 11 disaster.

World marks Chernobyl under shadow of Japan

The interior of a kindergarten is seen in the abandoned city of Prypiat near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

 -- PHOTO: REUTERS

KIEV - THE world on Tuesday marks a quarter century since the world's worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine, haunted by fears over the safety of atomic energy after the Japan earthquake.

Australia PM visits Japan tsunami town

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Saturday visited the tsunami-devastated town of Minamisanriku, becoming the first foreign leader to travel to Japan's disaster zone. -- PHOTO: AFP

MINAMISANRIKU - AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Saturday visited the tsunami-devastated town of Minamisanriku, becoming the first foreign leader to travel to Japan's disaster zone.

The town, which had a population of 17,600, was obliterated and more than 1,130 people killed or left missing when the massive wall of water triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake smashed through the northeastern resort on March 11.

Japan to check radiation risk to breast milk

Japan's health ministry is to check whether breast milk has been affected by radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, the spokesman for Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Thursday. -- PHOTO: AFP

TOKYO - JAPAN'S health ministry is to check whether breast milk has been affected by radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, the spokesman for Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Thursday.

The plant was hit by the March 11 quake and tsunami and a series of explosions. It has leaked radiation into the air, ground and sea in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

Tsunami auction gets $90 million bid for piano

Yahoo Japan says an online bidder has pledged a staggering US$73 million (S$90.3 million) for a crystal piano (above) put up for a tsunami charity auction by a heavy metal band musician. -- PHOTO: AP

TOKYO - YAHOO Japan says an online bidder has pledged a staggering US$73 million (S$90.3 million) for a crystal piano put up for a tsunami charity auction by a heavy metal band musician.

For Clinton, not a bow but a kiss for Japan royal

Mrs Clinton, on a brief visit to disaster-hit Japan to show US solidarity, took the unusual step of kissing Empress Michiko on the cheek. -- PHOTO: AFP

TOKYO - US SECRETARY of State Hillary Clinton offered her own take during a Tokyo visit on Sunday on how to treat Japan's imperial family - with a peck on the cheek.

Japan's seismologists 'blinded to March 11 quake'

An elderly woman walks amongst tsunami damage in the town of Yamada, Iwate prefecture. Japan's seismologists were so fixated by the risk of a big quake on the southern Pacific coast that they had become 'blinkered' to the risk of the March 11 magnitude 9.0 earthquake. -- PHOTO: AFP

PARIS - JAPAN'S seismologists were so entrenched in outdated beliefs about seismic hazard that they became blinkered to the risk of the March 11 mega-quake, a commentary in a top science journal charged on Wednesday.

Writing in the journal Nature, Robert Geller, an American who is professor of seismology at the University of Tokyo, said Japanese government scientists had become fixated by the risk of a big quake on Japan's southern Pacific coast.

Japan's nuclear evacuees shunned over health fears

Evacuees living in partitioned 'rooms' at a shelter in Kamaishi in Iwate prefecture. People fleeing Japan's crippled nuclear plant are being turned away from evacuation centres due to fears they might contaminate others with radiation. -- PHOTO: AFP

KITAKAMI - PEOPLE fleeing Japan's crippled nuclear plant are being turned away from evacuation centres because of unfounded fears they might contaminate others with radiation.

Those made homeless by the emergency at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi atomic plant need local government-issued certificates proving they are not contaminated before they are allowed to step foot inside the centres.

Fukushima, Chernobyl 'not comparable': Watchdog

This April 1986 aerial photo shows the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, as made two to three days after the explosion in Chernobyl, Ukraine. France's nuclear safety agency says the impact of Fukushima's nuclear woes weren't 'comparable' to that of Chernobyl. -- PHOTO: AP

PARIS - THE accident at Fukushima has released 'significant' amounts of radiation but at levels and with an impact that are 'not comparable' to Chernobyl, France's nuclear safety agency said on Tuesday.

'At present... Fukushima is not, nor will it be, Chernobyl, even though it is a very serious accident,' the head of the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), Patrick Gourmelon, said. 

Japan upgrades nuclear severity level to maximum

Japanese police officers wearing white suits to protect them from radiation stand by a victim being cleaned. Japan is to raise its assessment of the severity of its nuclear emergency to the maximum seven, reports said. -- PHOTO: AP

TOKYO - JAPAN upgraded its nuclear emergency to a maximum seven on an international scale of atomic crises on Tuesday, the first time the ranking has been invoked since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

The incident at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was sparked by last month's earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 13,000 people, with around 14,500 people still missing.

Japan PM says nuclear plant 'stabilising step-by-step'

Mr Kan asked people to return to normal life one month after a massive seabed earthquake sent a tsunami barrelling into Japan's northeast coast, sparking the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

TOKYO - JAPAN'S Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Tuesday that the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant is gradually stabilising and that the amount of radiation being released is declining.

'Step by step, the reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi power plant are moving toward stability,' Mr Kan said in a televised press conference. 'The level of radioactive materials released is declining.' Mr Kan also asked people to return to normal life one month after a massive seabed earthquake sent a tsunami barrelling into Japan's northeast coast, sparking the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

Man stranded in empty town since tsunami

Stranded alone inside the unheated, dark home is 75-year-old Kunio Shiga (above). He cannot walk very far and doesn't know what happened to his wife. --PHOTO: AP

MINAMI SOMA (Japan) - THE farmhouse sits at the end of a mud-caked, one-lane road strewn with toppled trees, the decaying carcasses of dead pigs and large debris deposited by the March 11 tsunami.

Stranded alone inside the unheated, dark home is 75-year-old Kunio Shiga. He cannot walk very far and doesn't know what happened to his wife.

Tsunami survivor returns to help save nuclear plant

Radiation controller Hiroyuki Kohno is taking on a job many others have declined - to head back to the disaster zone to join crews struggling to avert meltdown. -- PHOTO: AP

KAZO (Japan)- THREE weeks after watching a massive wave smash into the Fukushima nuclear plant, Mr Hiroyuki Kohno is heading back to the disaster zone to join crews struggling to avert a meltdown.