As world honours the dead, Indonesia begins tsunami memorials

Yahoo – AFP, Nurdin Hasan, 26 Dec 2014

Women attend a prayer service at Baiturrahman Mosque in Banda Aceh, in

 the northern Sumatra island, on December 25, 2014, prior to the 10th anniversary

 of the tsunami that hit the west coast of Aceh province (AFP Photo/

Chaideer Mahyuddin)

Thousands of people held a memorial Thursday in Indonesia's Aceh province, the epicentre of the Indian Ocean tsunami, as the world prepared to mark a decade since a disaster that took 220,00 lives and laid waste to coastal areas in 14 countries.

On December 26, 2004 a 9.3-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia's western coast sparked a series of towering waves that wrought destruction across countries as far apart as Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Somalia.

Among the victims were thousands of foreign holidaymakers enjoying Christmas on the region's sun-kissed beaches, striking tragedy into homes around the world.

A tourist rides a bicycle past a poster

 ahead of the tenth anniversary of the 2004

 tsunami at Patong beach in Phuket

 province on December 25, 2014 (AFP\

 Photo/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

Muslim clerics, tsunami survivors and rescue workers led around 7,000 mourners gathered at Banda Aceh's black-domed Baiturrahman Grand Mosque for memorial prayers late Thursday.

Malaysian cleric Syeikh Ismail Kassim said he and several hundred compatriots attended to show support for Aceh.

"We hope Aceh people will not waver as a result of the calamity that has befallen them," he told AFP.

Aceh governor Zaini Abdullah thanked Indonesians and the international community in his address at the mosque, one of the few buildings which withstood the wrath of the massive earthquake and ensuing waves which left 170,000 people in the country dead or missing.

"The tsunami had caused deep sorrow to Aceh residents from having lost their loved ones," he said.

"Sympathy from Indonesians and the international community has helped (Aceh) to recover," he added.

He also called on residents not to "dwell in our grief, so that we could rise from adversity and achieve a better Aceh".

Kamaruddin, a fisherman who like many Indonesians goes by one name, said he attended the prayers to remember his wife and three children who died in the tsunami.

"I hope there will be no more disasters in Aceh," the 50-year-old said.

In Meulaboh, a fishing town considered to be the ground zero of the tsunami -- where 35 metre-high waves flattened almost everything -- Indonesian flags were flown at half-mast as small groups of residents held night prayers at mosques.

The main memorials were planned for Friday morning, starting in Aceh which was hit first by the waves, then moving to Thailand where candlelit ceremonies are expected in the resort hubs of Phuket and Khao Lak.

There will also be events in Sri Lanka, including at the site where a train carrying 1,500 people was washed away, as well as in several European capitals to remember foreign nationals who perished.

'Like being in a washing machine'

Many of the tsunami's victims died in dark, churning waters laden with uprooted trees, boats, cars and eviscerated beach bungalows, as the waves surged miles inland and then retreated, sucking many more into the sea.

Thailand saw 5,395 people killed by the disaster -- half of them foreign holidaymakers.

British survivor Andy Chaggar was in a bungalow on Thailand's Khao Lak when the tsunami waves struck, taking his girlfriend's life and sweeping him inland.

This picture taken on December 4, 2014 shows people visiting the Ban Nam

Khem tsunami memorial park wall in Khao Lak (AFP Photo/Nicolas Asfouri)

"I came to in the water... there was glass, metal, there were pieces of wood, bricks, it was like being in a washing machine full of nails," he told AFP on Thursday, on the same beach where he lost his girlfriend.

As the scale of the tragedy emerged, disaster-stricken nations struggled to mobilise a relief effort, leaving bloated bodies to pile up under the tropical sun or in makeshift morgues.

The world poured money and expertise into the relief and reconstruction, with more than $13.5 billion collected in the months after the disaster.

Almost $7 billion in aid went into rebuilding more than 140,000 houses across Aceh, thousands of kilometres of roads, and new schools and hospitals.

The vast majority of Indonesia's 170,000 victims perished in the province, among them tens of thousands of children.

But the disaster also ended a decades-long separatist conflict, with a peace deal between rebels and Jakarta struck less than a year later.

It also prompted the establishment of a pan-ocean tsunami warning system, made up of sea gauges and buoys, while individual countries have invested heavily in disaster preparedness.

But experts have cautioned against the perils of "disaster amnesia" creeping into communities vulnerable to natural disasters.

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"Current" Events –  Apr 10, 2005 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

“… Mass Human Death

The final one, dear Human, is the hardest one for my partner and the one we wish to leave you with in this channeling tonight. This is the one that my partner doesn't want to even have me talk about. It's the appropriateness of mass death. For you, built in to your very essence is the honor for life, and the sorrow when it passes. It's correct and appropriate that this is there, and never let it be tempered. But the wisdom of understanding is also needed to help you get past some challenges of the Human heart.

"Dear Kryon, was the tsunami really necessary?" Yes it was. Almost 200,000 Human Beings passed over. It's an event that for you is filled with horror, sorrow, emotion, and challenge. Back in 1989, we told you of those that might have to leave the earth en masse, and here it is. Yet even my partner [Lee] asks the questions, "Why the children? Why the poorest parts of the earth? Why the seeming inappropriateness of all this death?"

And I say to you the same thing I said with respect to Terri: Do you understand yet that death is often as precious as life on this planet of many energies and lessons? They are not gone! They're all here [speaking from Kryon's perspective]. They're having a great time! They're joyful! It seems like a moment ago they leaned into the wind of birth with us beside them. We said, "How would you like to participate in an event that will change the compassion factor of the planet so that energies can move forward and provide faster acceleration of vibratory shift? How would you like to help create peace on earth through a consciousness shift within Gaia itself? And they said, "Show us the way!"

Do you understand why we are in love with humanity... that you would love the earth and the Universe so much that you would go through these things? So much of what you see is horrible tragedy, yet you're looking at the heroes of humanity as they deliver a gift that will change the very fabric of Gaia through the compassion created as a wave of humanity responds to their plight.

They knew the potentials and they went through with it. Even the children knew, for they're old souls within their divinity. There was so much compassion created at that time, in that one week, the earth has never seen anything like it in your lifetime. Billions of Humans were involved with a compassion that instantly went to the core of the planet. It went into the earth and it's still there. It changed the actual energy of where you walk and it planted a seeds that will grow that will indeed emerge later in Israel, and those surrounding Israel.

And that's what it's about. Yet some of you didn't want to hear that, did you? But they're here, with me now... and with you as well. How could you fit them all in this room, you might ask? They can fit on the head of a pin! That's interdimensional talk. They can go home in your purse or your pocket! That's interdimensional talk, too. And they've got a message for you that we've given before, but you can't hear it enough: "We did our part - now you do yours, Lighthouse! For the ones who remain are the only ones who can manipulate the tools we have helped create."

When you go home tonight, you're not going to be in a survival situation - in a tent in a tribe with no lights or clean water, with no food. You're not going to be in sorrow or despair. Instead, you go home to a warm place with plenty of food and friendship and the love of family. That's why you're the Lighthouses, because you have time for it. You've got the intellect for it. You're not in survival mode, as is so much of humanity on the earth. You have the education for it and the intuition for it. Now, do you understand why there are so many Lighthworkers in the western world? It's because your culture has created a situation where there's abundance of these things, and it allows you to lead the way in changing the energy of earth, instead of having all your time spent just trying to survive. Does this help you understand the responsibility of what you have before you?

Strike the light and send it to the Sudanese. Strike light and send it to those dark places with governments where there's corruption. Strike the light and send it to the scientists and researchers who already have the cures for the more virulent diseases on the planet, but can't begin their work due to the barriers of certain leadership and their old ways. Strike the light and send it to Israel and Palestine and get on with this solution! This is why you're here, and this is the agreement you made when you arrived and selected the culture you live in.

Achievable in your lifetime, it is. Peace and compassion will prevail. You shall see. You shall see.

And so it is.

Kryon

150 killed as tsunami-like flood hits southern Russia

RT.com, 07 July, 2012

Massive flooding in the Krasnodar region in Russia’s south has left 150

 dead and hundreds more displaced, while the death toll continues to rise. 

(Imge from vk.com/id1598981)

At least 150 people have been killed in a devastating flood in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region. It's the worst of its kind in nearly a century, and the death toll continues to rise.

Up to 12,000 people have been affected by the disaster. A state of emergency has been declared in the cities of Krymsk, Novorossiysk, and Gelendzhik. In total 139 bodies have been recovered so far in Krymsk, nine in Gelendzhik and two in Novorossiysk.

Deputy Minister of the Interior Aleksandr Gorovoy said that the search for bodies continued as there are still two people unaccounted for.

Over 130 people are currently in hospital, including 14 children following the flood.

Six months' worth of rain in two days

The flood was part of the aftermath of a giant storm that hit Krasnodar, dropping almost half a year’s rainfall on the region over two days.

The most heavily affected areas are along the Russian Black Sea coast, which bore the brunt of the deluge as it rushed out to sea.

The speed of the flood was shocking, carrying away not only homes, but 16-ton trucks as well. One driver said his truck was literally carried tens of meters by the deluge. In a separate incident, a ten-year-old girl was ripped from her mother and sister’s arms by the force of the current.

Five people in Gelendzhik were electrocuted to death after a wire fell into the water. A man trying to cross a puddle next to a store on Kerchenskaya Street was the first to receive fatal injuries. Two women and another man rushed to help him, but were also killed by the electric current. A third man later approached the four bodies, and was himself electrocuted to death, his body carried away by the oncoming flood waters.

Local authorities say a large part of the casualties were pensioners unable to escape from their homes when the floodwaters struck.

Governor of the Krasnodar region Aleksandr Tkachyov surveyed the damage in the Gelendzhik and Krymsky districts from a helicopter in order to estimate repairs, sending updates on the situation via Twitter. “The scale of it is spectacular, to be sure, and very tragic. The water came with such force that it tore up the asphalt,” the governor wrote on Saturday, commenting on a picture of one of the main streets in the city where the flood hit hardest.

Emergencies Ministry rescue teams and helicopters have been dispatched to the scene in order to join the rescue and repair efforts already underway in the region. Over 10,000 rescue officers and 140 helicopters are currently working at the scene.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin as well as Emergency Minister Vladimir Puchkov and the Minister of Regional Development Oleg Govorun have visited the affected area.

Furthermore, Russia’s Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova arrived on Sunday in the Krasnodar region. She is assessing the full impact of the tragedy and the situation in the shelters housing evacuees from the flood zone.

The Russian Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe into the tragedy on the grounds of negligence.

Krasnodar regional authorities have declared July 9 a day of mourning.

Children's summer camps evacuated

Authorities in the Perm region of Russia dispatched their own rescue team to evacuate dozens of children who were at local summer camps as the storms hit.

“The children have no contact with the Ministry of Emergencies or the local authorities in Gelendzhik. For two days now they have been without supplies and electricity,” said Viktor Basargin, Governor of the Perm Region on Saturday. “We have decided to take action on the issue of their evacuation.”

So far, 84 children have returned home. Some 114 more are said to be an area unaffected by the disaster, so the supervisors of their camp decided the kids could continue their holiday.

There is growing concern over the tourist population in the area. The land is popular with campers and tourists for its proximity to the Black Sea. This year alone 7,130 Russian children went camping in the surrounding territory, Russian Vice-premier Olga Golodetz announced in the wake of the disaster.

However, Governor Tkachyov emphasized that the all the camp grounds in the area appear to be safe: “Practically all the campgrounds are in normal condition, nothing is threatening the lives of the children.” The only campground that has suffered as a result of the flooding was the “Azure Shore” campsite, which was without power.

Tkachyov, nevertheless supported Basargin’s decision to evacuate the children.

Photos show the extent of the devastation caused by the flood waters, see more in

RT's photo gallery.

The worst affected town is Krymsk, with scores of fatalities. 

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Fukushima investigation reveals failings

Japanese government delayed giving information to the public, according to interim report into the disaster

guardian.co.uk, Associated Press in Tokyo, Monday 26 December 2011

A disturbing picture has emerged of bumbling workers and government
officials scrambling to respond to the disaster. Photograph: Ken
Shimizu/AFP/Getty Images

Japan's response to the nuclear crisis that followed the 11 March tsunami was confused and riddled with problems, including an erroneous assumption an emergency cooling system was working and a delay in disclosing dangerous radiation leaks, a report has revealed.

The disturbing picture of harried and bumbling workers and government officials scrambling to respond to the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was depicted in the report, detailing a government investigation.

The 507-page interim report, compiled by interviewing more than 400 people, including utility workers and government officials, found authorities had grossly underestimated tsunami risks, assuming the highest wave would be 6m (20ft). The tsunami hit at more than double that level.

The report criticised the use of the term soteigai, meaning outside our imagination, or unforseeable, which it said implied authorities were shirking responsibility for what had happened. It said by labelling the events as beyond what could have been expected, officials had invited public distrust.

"This accident has taught us an important lesson on how we must be ready for soteigai," it said.

The report, set to be finished by mid 2012, found workers at Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the utility that ran Fukushima Daiichi, were untrained to handle emergencies such as the power shutdown that struck when the tsunami destroyed backup generators setting off the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

There was no clear manual to follow, and the workers failed to communicate, not only with the government but also among themselves, it said.

Finding alternative ways to bring sorely needed water to the reactors was delayed for hours because of the mishandling of an emergency cooling system, the report said. Workers assumed the system was working, despite several warning signs it had failed and was sending the nuclear core into meltdown.

The report acknowledged that even if the system had kicked in properly, the tsunami damage may have been so great that meltdowns would have happened anyway.

But a better response might have reduced the core damage, radiation leaks and the hydrogen explosions that followed at two reactors and sent plumes of radiation into the air, according to the report.

The government dallied in relaying information to the public, such as using evasive language to avoid admitting serious meltdowns at the reactors, the report said.

The government also delayed disclosure of radiation data in the area, unnecessarily exposing entire towns to radiation when they could have evacuated, the report found.

The government recommended changes so utilities will respond properly to serious accidents.

It recommended separating the nuclear regulators from the unit that promotes atomic energy, echoing frequent criticism since the disaster, which left 20,000 people dead or missing.

Japan's nuclear regulators were in the same ministry that promotes the industry, but they will be moved to the environment ministry next year to ensure more independence.

The report acknowledged people were still living in fear of radiation in the air and water, as well as radiation in the food they eat. Thousands have been forced to evacuate and have suffered monetary damage from radiation contamination, it said.

"The nuclear disaster is far from over," the report said.

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"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) -  (Text version)

"Update on Current Events" – Jul 23, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: The Humanization of God, Gaia, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Benevolent Design, Financial Institutes (Recession, System to Change ...), Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Nuclear Power Revealed, Geothermal Power, Hydro Power, Drinking Water from Seawater, No need for Oil as Much, Middle East in Peace, Persia/Iran Uprising, Muhammad, Israel, DNA, Two Dictators to fall soon, Africa, China, (Old) Souls, Species to go, Whales to Humans, Global Unity,..... etc.)

The toxic truth about Japan's 'harmony' after the tsunami

We're repeatedly told post-tsunami Japan is a model of harmony and order thanks to its stoic national character. The reality is startlingly - and dangerously - different

Daily Mail, By RICHARD JONES, 8th June 2011

It is an inimitable picture of Japanese order and contentment. Passengers throng Sendai Airport. In the fields and market gardens close by, farmers are tending their crops. In the city, the bullet trains are spitting out businessmen.

It is almost impossible to imagine the colossal earthquake that unleashed first a tsunami and then a nuclear nightmare just 100 days ago. The north-eastern seaboard was devastated. Some 28,000 people are dead or missing. Sixteen towns, 95,000 buildings and 23 railway stations have been destroyed. The town of Minamisanriku has simply vanished. No wonder the recovery, so meticulously documented in the media, has been described as a modern miracle. Today, the ships that balanced on tower blocks have gone. The debris has vanished from whole villages and towns.

It is further proof, we are reminded, that Japan is a society of immeasurable strength. And for this it can thank 'wa', or harmony. This is a collective feeling close to a sense of perfection. It ensures everyone knows their place and acts accordingly. Or so the Japanese like to tell themselves – and the outside world.

No change: The wrecked port of Onagawa looks as bad today as it
did in the days after the tsunami and earthquake

Yet post-tsunami Japan is far from harmonious. The bullet trains may be running, but in the fishing villages and tiny ports that litter the jagged coastline north of Sendai, thousands are surviving on aid handouts. The emergency cash promised by the government is yet to arrive.

Take Minamisanriku, the town whose devastating fate was pictured on the front page of The Mail on Sunday. There has been no miracle here. Today, it remains a nightmare of twisted metal and fragments of First World comfort. The raging 98ft wave caused annihilation. Harmony has long disappeared from Ishinomaki, too. The port town, 30 miles from Sendai, took the full force of the tsunami. It is a ghost town shrouded in the stench of rotting fish.

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There is no doubt that 'wa' helped Japan to deal with its monumental problems; but it also means that victims suffer in silence. In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, orderly queues snaked for miles for food, water and fuel. There was no looting and raping, which often accompanies natural disasters elsewhere.

Now, though, victims break down when I meet them. Mother-of-two Mrs Hiroake has lived with her family on two mats in an evacuation shelter in Ishinomaki since the tsunami hit.

Trauma: Mrs Hiroake has lived with
her family on two mats in an
Ishinomaki evacuation centre
since the disaster

'We are living in a limbo with no privacy,' she says. 'Our lives stopped. People here are suffering mentally.'

The 254 billion yen (£1.94 billion) raised by the Japanese Red Cross for tsunami victims (including £10.5 million donated from Britain) is taking an astonishingly long time to reach the people who need it most. Just 37 billion yen has been distributed so far.

Pensions and welfare payments, too, have dried up. Mr Konno, a diabetic, can't understand why his monthly benefits of 15,000 yen (£114) stopped the moment he moved to a shelter.

Another victim, a 78-year-old widow, Mrs Utako Saito, sleeps in a tent she has pitched in her wrecked wooden cottage. She has not received her pension for three months.

With unemployment running at 90 per cent, the needy are starting to revolt. One third of families are refusing to move to temporary housing, opting to remain in shelters to hang on to their precious food benefits. Sixty per cent of the 28,000 temporary homes remain unoccupied. A staggering 90,000 people remain in shelters.

'The government don't want people to get too comfortable here, so they don't allow evacuees electricity inside the shelter,' says a volunteer from the Catholic charity Caritas.

However, the worst affected may prove to be those who lost nothing in the way of homes or relatives. They may have no running water, no money, no employment. But when compensation is finally awarded, they will be entitled to nothing.

The large hill-top home of Chieko Miura, 62, just north of Minamisanriku, became a shelter for 30 locals.

'Eventually we managed to get rice balls from the government, but there was nothing for my family because we were not “victims”,' Mrs Miura, who still looks after 12 evacuees, recalls.

'This government can be very cold-hearted. Do they want us to abandon the people we are helping?'

Tears are streaming down her face as she says this, and she apologises. Survivors have been eating little more than biscuits and dried food.

'Should we take the home with no food or stay in the shelter and eat?' says Mrs Miaki, 46, a sea-urchin fisherman, at Yariki Bay, north of Sendai.

Uncomfortable: Tatekoshi Elementary School in Natori, Sendai, Japan - one
of hundreds of shelters where people who lost homes in the tsunami are living

According to Kei Watabe, who distributes food, people are not starving, 'but they are not getting enough food from the government. Japan is not the Third World. This is not Africa. The Japanese government are the first to send aid overseas, but when it comes to their own people they are blind.'

If these tsunami victims have been deprived of food, the rest of Japan has been starved of information. The Japanese are now struggling to comprehend how their government could mislead them about the nuclear meltdown that followed the tsunami.

When the Fukushima nuclear plant exploded on March 12, and again two days later, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the plant's operator, the government and the media, reassured the nation, and the world, that everything was under control.

It was not until May 12 that officials conceded that there had been a meltdown at not one, but three reactors. Even the timing of the announcement was cynical. It happened as inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were about to arrive.

Nuclear disaster: Workers walking inside Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant Unit 2 reactor turbine building in Fukushima,
northern Japan

TEPCO was able to control information through the age-old system of Press Clubs, where the government provides information to selected media.

But The Mail on Sunday spoke to sources inside the Japanese nuclear industry who knew that radiation readings spiked 155 miles south of Fukushima, immediately after the first explosion. They were told by officials to keep the findings quiet.

A survey by Fuji Television Network last month found that 81 per cent of the public no longer trusts any government information about radiation.

Still in ruins: The disaster zone in Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture,
on June 18, 2011, 100 days after the earthquake and tsunami

Food shopping has also become a problem. Shops have started mixing vegetables from different prefectures as customers are now selecting food based on where it is grown.

In an attempt to reassure the nation, the Japanese Prime Minister, Naoto Kan, visted Fukushima last month where he cheerfully ate locally grown cherries and tomatoes in front of the news cameras. As he spoke, bulldozers were removing the top soil from Fukushima school playgrounds due to high radiation levels.

Michael Penn, president of the Shingetsu News Agency, says: 'The media and the government share a cultural inclination to keep the people calm. But this time the government have badly misunderstood the public's needs.'

It is not the first time that the government and bureaucrats have neglected public safety. In the early Nineties around 1,800 people developed AIDS after being infected with untreated blood products. Most victims were dead before the Ministry of Health admitted negligence.

Pile up: Boats are still stacked against one another
in Kesennuma, Miyagi prefecture, 100 days after the
earthquake struck Japan

According to a well-known Japanese documentary maker, TEPCO paid for the creation of a blacklist of actors and musicians who are against the nuclear industry.

When one actor, Taro Yamamoto, joined an anti-nuclear protest, he lost his part in a popular soap opera. Yamamoto's 'crime' was to say that schoolchildren in Fukushima should not be subjected to the same annual radiation dose (20 microsieverts per year) as nuclear power workers in Europe.

One hundred days after the biggest earthquake in Japanese history, life is certainly not back to normal. One refugee told me: 'My biggest worry is that the people here will be forgotten as the media focus on the nuclear crisis.'

And 'wa', the harmony, is disappearing as people feel that their government has failed them.

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France to restrict export of reactors after Japan: Francois Fill

Reuters, PARIS, Thu Mar 17, 2011

(Reuters) - France will only sell nuclear reactors to countries with sufficient technical capability and the capacity to handle crises like the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Thursday.

"We will only export nuclear reactors to countries that have reached a level of development and handling of the technology and who have capacity to cope with crises like the one we are witnessing," Fillon told France 2 television in an interview.

(Reporting by Daniel Flynn and John Irish; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

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EU group offers to help Japanese radiation victims

The Jakarta Post, Associated Press, London | Wed, 03/16/2011

A European bone marrow transplant group on Wednesday offered to treat Japanese emergency workers who may be exposed to dangerous radiation from the crippled nuclear reactors.

"Japan is more competent than any European country when it comes to radiation treatment," said Ray Powles, chair of the nuclear accident committee for the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation.

"But they are dealing with an awful lot right now and so we made this offer and are ready to help if they blow the whistle."

Marc Stoll, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, said Japan's Red Cross has said it so far does not need any helpwith blood or bone marrow donations.

Doctors say there is a short window of opportunity after people are exposed to radiation when they can assess whether patients will need extensive treatment or a bone marrow transplant.

"After a person has been radiated, you have three to four days before they're on the cusp of severe complications," Powles said. "At that point, they could be put on a flight to Europe if Japanese facilities are overwhelmed."

Powles said 500 bone marrow transplant centers across 27 European countries have been put on alert and could treat 200 to 300 patients if necessary.

He said the group made their offer to Japanese officials and the World Health Organization.

The European group based in Maastricht, the Netherlands, initially drew up its emergency plans to respond to a radiation threat in the aftermath of terrorist attacks and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Radiation typically kills many bone marrow cells, which can lead to a compromised immune system in patients, leaving them vulnerable to infections and other health problems.

Powles said European doctors were not offering to perform bone marrow transplants, but to treat Japanese patients with supportive care like antibiotics until a transplant was possible.

He said it was important to find out how much radiation nuclear plant workers are being exposed to as they attempt to cool reactors.

People exposed to a lethal dose - as was the case with some workers in the aftermath of Chernobyl - will likely die within days. But those who only get a moderate dose could survive much longer even if they ultimately need a bone marrow transplant.

"We do have the luxury of time if workers are not getting increasing doses of radiation as they go into the plants," Powles said. He said doctors could accurately predict which people would be in trouble 12 to 48 hours after being exposed to radiation and that emergency care could be provided in Europe to keep them alive.

Jim Smith, a physics expert at the University of Portsmouth said the radiation risk to the general public is low, even for people in the immediate vicinity of the problematic nuclear plants.

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