The developments raised fears of a meltdown at the plant as officials scrambled to contain what could be the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 that shocked the world.

The Japanese plant was damaged by Friday’s 8.9-magnitude earthquake, which sent a 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.

“We are looking into the cause and the situation and we’ll make that public when we have further information,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said after confirming the explosion and radiation leak at the plant.

Edano said an evacuation radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the stricken 40-year-old Daiichi 1 reactor plant in Fukushima prefecture was adequate, but an hour later the boundary was extended to 20 km (13 miles). TV footage showed vapor rising from the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Along Japan’s northeast coast, rescue workers searched through the rubble of destroyed buildings, cars and boats, looking for survivors in hardest-hit areas such as the city of Sendai, 300 km (180 miles) northeast of Tokyo.

Dazed residents hoarded water and huddled in makeshift shelters in near-freezing temperatures. Aerial footage showed buildings and trains strewn over mudflats like children’s toys.

“All the shops are closed, this is one of the few still open. I came to buy and stock up on diapers, drinking water and food,” Kunio Iwatsuki, 68, told Reuters in Mito city, where residents queued outside a damaged supermarket for supplies.

Across the coastline, survivors clambered over nearly impassable roads. In Iwanuma, not far from Sendai, people spelled S.O.S. out on the roof of a hospital surrounded by water, one of many desperate scenes.

Merkez üssü başkent Tokyo’ya 324 kilometre uzaklıkta olan depremin yer yüzüne çok yakın olduğu belirtiliyor. Deprem Tokyo’da bile şiddetli bir şekilde hissedildi. Yetkililerin yaptığı tsunami alarmıyla başkent Tokyo da dahil olmak üzere yüzbinlerce kişi yollara düşerken tsunami gecikmedi. Yaklaşık 6 metrelik dalgalar oluşturan tsunami sonrasında yüzlerce araç denize çekildi. Ülkenin sahil kesimlerinde araçlar denizde yüzerken ölü ve yaralı sayısı hakkında henüz bir bilgi gelmedi. Depremin merkez üssünden ise hiçbir haber alınamıyor. Japonya kaygıyla gelişmeleri izlerken uzmanlar bu şiddetteki bir depremin artçılarının da en az 6-7 şiddetinde olacağını öngörüyor.

Görgü tanıklarından gelen ilk ifadelere göre bölgede çok sayıda bina yıkıldı. Ölü ve yaralı sayısının çok fazla olmasından endişe ediliyor. Japonya yerel saatiyle 14:46′da meydana gelen 8,9 büyüklüğündeki depremden sonra oluşan tsunami Tokyo’yu da vurdu. Başkent Tokyo’da yangınlar çıktığı da gelen haberler arasında. Yabancı ajanslar Tokyo havaalanının ulaşıma kapatıldığını duyururken Japonya Meteoroloji Kurumu Tokyo’nun da şiddetli bir şekilde sallandığını duyurdu.

“We are in the process of deploying 9 experts who are among the most experienced we have for dealing with catastrophes. They will help evaluate needs and coordinate assistance with Japanese authorities,” Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told Reuters.

The team of U.N. disaster relief officials includes several Japanese speakers and an environmental expert, she said.

An explosion blew the roof off an unstable nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, raising fears of a disastrous meltdown.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said there had been a radiation leak at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake — the strongest recorded in Japan — sent a 10-meter (33-foot) high tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast on Friday. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.

The U.N. announced late on Friday that four foreign search and rescue teams (Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the United States) were on their way after Japan requested help.

Singapore is also deploying an urban search and rescue team in Japan, Byrs told Reuters on Saturday as Switzerland announced it was sending a team of some 25 rescue and medical experts accompanied by nine sniffer dogs. Britain also said it was sending help, after receiving a request form Japan.

The Swiss team will be charged with searching for victims underneath the debris of the tsunami, Toni Frisch, head of the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit said on Swiss radio.

The Swiss unit is a militia corps with a pool of at least 700 people ready for duty whose skills range from engineering, seismology, telecommunications and war surgery.

Now the 38-year-old is now listed as missing, feared entombed with up to 120 others in the CTV building which was devastated in Tuesday’s 6.3-magnitude earthquake.

Her distraught sister Leila Garcia and brother-in-law James arrived in New Zealand’s second city on Friday, praying she would be miraculously found alive, but knowing they faced the grim prospect she had not survived.

“We last saw her on Sunday when we dropped her off at the airport in Wellington. She was coming to Christchurch to study at English at King’s Education,” James Garcia said as he comforted his weeping wife.

“She was so happy. She was working at a retirement home and needed to study English to become a nurse. This was to be her new life. Now we can only hope she is all right, but…” He could not complete the sentence.

Agatep was one of five missing students who were on just their second day at King’s Education college, a busy school on the third floor of the CTV building which also housed a local television station.

Up to 120 people are feared buried in the remains of the modern, six-storey office block, which collapsed into a smoking ruin in what has become the disaster’s biggest tragedy.

Nine of King’s staff are missing, among a list of about 50 people from the school including many Japanese, Chinese and Filipino students. A brother and sister from South Korea are also unaccounted for in the disaster.

The Korean siblings’ father arrived in Christchurch Thursday to search for the pair.

“My son and daughter must be alive,” said 57-year-old Yoo Sang-cheol, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

“I hear that some of the injured people have not yet been identified, so I’m going to go to the hospitals immediately,” he said. “I’m certain that my son and daughter will be among them,” he said as he burst into tears.

Tales of heroism and extreme luck have arisen from the building’s ashes, with Japan’s Kento Okuda, 19, freed only after having his right leg amputated. Despite his ordeal, Okuda remained positive and optimistic.

“Despite this incident, I still want to visit many other countries. I hope to get a job where I can use English,” he told Japanese media, smiling and flashing a victory sign for the cameras.

New Zealand media said one King’s teacher stepped out of a window and walked across the rubble to safety as the entire building collapsed around her.

But tragically, the expectations are that many others in the building will not have survived. Foreign Minister Murray McCully said he had told diplomats from affected countries to expect bad news.

“I’ve said to them that while we do not have the information that those families would want, we are at a point where some very negative conclusions need to be drawn,” McCully said.

“There will be families receiving the worst type of news in the next few days.”

Christchurch city councillor Jimmy Chen, who has been appointed to liaise with families of the Chinese missing, said there was high anxiety among relatives who are unable to travel to New Zealand.

“There is a lot of anxiety among the families who can’t get here. They want up-to-date status regarding their children,” he said.

Tanks and other military vehicles patrolled the capital and remained in control of key intersections. Banks and some grocery stores closed. The main Shiite political party announced its withdrawal from parliament, and leaders called for a “Day of Rage” after Friday prayers – hoping to emulate the protests that brought down President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.

Other leaders among the Persian Gulf countries rallied to the defense of Bahrain’s monarchy, denouncing any outside influence in the country’s affairs and praising the quick action of Bahraini leaders to counter the protests. Though the violence was “regrettable,” said Bahraini Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmad al-Khalifa, the protests were pushing the country toward a “sectarian abyss.”

Most residents of the gulf states are Sunni, and there are enduring concerns among the region’s leaders about Iran’s influence over Shiite communities, particularly in Bahrain and neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged the government to use restraint in response to the protests, telling the Bahraini foreign minister in a phone call of “deep concerns” over the police-led violence.

Bahrain is the first of the oil-rich gulf monarchies to be significantly rattled by the protests that have broken out elsewhere, forcing the United States and other countries to again balance strategic interests with the democratic demands of the population. Along with its proximity to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain hosts a major U.S. naval base that serves as a staging ground for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bahrain’s roughly 12,000-member military is made up predominantly of Bahraini nationals. But the Bahraini security forces, including riot police, are filled with Pakistanis and other foreign-born troops and officers “who are happy to do whatever they have to do to keep law and order,” said Bruce Riedel, a former Middle East CIA analyst now with the Brookings Institution in Washington.

The situation in Bahrain is further complicated by a palace feud between the country’s prime minister and his nephew, the country’s king.

The police involved in Thursday’s violence are answerable to the prime minister, Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, and the force’s reliance on Pakistanis and other foreign recruits has long been a source of tension in the country.

What remains unknown is whether King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa agreed to the action – he had apologized publicly for earlier police violence – and whether the crackdown will continue.

“There’s always been a question – and it’s completely opaque – as to just how much the king controls . . . and just how much the prime minister controls,” said Gregory Gause, a Persian Gulf specialist in the political science department at the University of Vermont. “You have the king making certain signals the one day and then the next day the troops move in.”

Sivil savunmanın tarihçesi konusunda da bilgiler veren Baş, “Doğal afetlere karşı halkın korunması konusunda, öteden beri bir takım önlemler alınıp uygulanmışsa da bu önlemler, örgütsel ve yasal dayanaklardan yoksundu. Birinci Dünya Savaşı’na kadar, özellikle halkın, savaşın tehlikelerine karşı korunması için hiçbir girişimde bulunulmadığı, buna ihtiyaç da duyulmadığı görülmektedir. Bunun nedeni, savaş silahlarının cephe gerilerine uzanacak menzile ve toptan yok etme gücüne erişememiş olmasıdır. Birinci Dünya savaşının ardından gelen yıllarda ülkelerin birçoğunda pasif korunma adı altında, halkın türlü tehlikelerden korunmasını amaçlayan önlemler getirilmiş ve örgütler kurulmuştur.” diye konuştu.

Muhtarların sivil savunma kılavuzu içerisinde yer aldığını vurgulayan Baş, muhtarlıkların ise kılavuzlar bölgesindeki yerlerin haber alma ve danışma merkezi olduğunu sözlerine ekledi.

The war over the causes of climate change, in particular, has been waged nowhere more fiercely than in Australia, a country whose knife-edge ecology makes it especially vulnerable. Floods in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales, Cyclone Yasi, and now a dismal coda with bushfires around Perth in Western Australia, have made disaster control and prevention the issues of the day in what is normally Australia’s switched-off summer holiday period. Even so, it is surprising that support for the Australian government has tumbled so precipitately. If an election was held today, prime minister Julia Gillard and the Labor party would be swept from office, according to a poll published in the Australian.

From afar the prime minister has looked to be making not too bad a fist of it. She organised federal resources reasonably effectively, and has come up with a reconstruction tax on wealthier households that has won the approval of the majority of Australians. But they seem to feel that she has not sufficiently felt their pain, though the tears this normally rather wooden politician choked back in the Australian parliament yesterday may shift that view. She has not mismanaged the disasters – far from it – but she has not emerged from them as an inspiring figure in the way that Rudolph Giuliani did from 9/11, or even Gordon Brown did, briefly, from a combination of bombs and floods at the beginning of his premiership.

The broader context is of an Australian political class which has been timid in dealing with environmental matters. Lack of support in his own Liberal party for an emissions trading scheme brought down Malcolm Turnbull, while the former Labor leader Kevin Rudd lost his job to Ms Gillard for a similar reason. She has now taken up the cudgels for emissions trading in a determined way. But all the trimming and the U-turning has taken its toll. As Australians grasp how big the environmental challenge is, they may be indicating at some level that they want their politicians to be as big as the challenge.

Valiliğin internet sitesinde yapılan duyuruya göre, AÜ Uydu ve Uzay Bilimleri Araştırma Enstitüsü’nde düzenlenen imza töreninde konuşma yapan Vali Mehmet Kılıçlar, işbirliği protokolünün kent için çok önemli olduğunu belirterek, afet durumunda Eskişehir’in hassas noktalarının bilinmesi gerektiğini ve bu konuda belediyelere de görev düştüğünü kaydetti.

AÜ Rektörü Prof. Dr. Davut Aydın da protokolün, kentte yaşanabilecek herhangi bir afet için önceden tedbir almak amacıyla yapıldığını ifade ederek, işbirliğinin kent için hayırlı olmasını diledi.

AÜ Uydu ve Uzay Bilimleri Araştırma Enstitüsü Öğretim Üyesi Doç. Dr. Yücel Güney de 40 maddelik bir form oluşturarak, kentteki 709 binayı incelediklerini bildirdi.

Ankara Üniversitesi Jeofizik Mühendisliği Bölümü Öğretim Üyesi Prof. Dr. Berkan Ecevitoğlu ise Eskişehir’de 216 farklı noktada, zemin özelliklerini belirlemek için çalışmalar yaptıklarını hatırlattı.

Konuşmaların ardından İl Afet ve Acil Durum Müdürü Recep Bayar, kurumun görevlerini ve çalışmalarını anlatan bir sunum gerçekleştirdi.

Toplantıya, Vali Yardımcısı Rıza Dalan, Eskişehir Osmangazi Üniversitesi Rektörü Prof. Dr. Fazıl Tekin, Tepebaşı Kaymakamı Dr. Necdet Türker ve çok sayıda davetli katıldı.

The Seoul summit will be the fifth since the G20 leaders got together in the immediate aftermath of the global economic crisis in 2008. Thanks to the G20-led concerted efforts, the world has been able to avoid another Great Depression. The successfully-performed feat has earned the G20 an honourable title: ‘a premier forum for international economic cooperation’. To be fair, the G20 that accounts for 85% of the global domestic product and two-thirds of the world population deserves due respect on its own merit. The emergence of the G20, with both developed and emerging markets as members, is definitely a welcome step forward from the standpoint of global governance, when compared with the G7 as an exclusive club of high-income countries.

There is, however, still doubt and scepticism hanging over the future of the G20. Some point out its lack of legitimacy as a group of non-elected countries. Others are worried that the waning of the global financial crisis could undermine collective action as countries become more embroiled in their own economic circumstances. Still others regard the G20 as a crisis committee responding to the recent financial meltdown as opposed to being a more permanent steering committee for the global economy. Under such circumstances, if the world’s pressing concerns are not properly and effectively addressed by the upcoming G20 Summit, recent progress made over the years risks being undone.

The Republic of Korea is taking these challenges by the horns. The Seoul agenda is clear. First, the Seoul summit will ensure that the commitments made by previous summits should be honoured in good faith and within a given timeframe. These commitments relate to a framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth, reform of international financial institutions, rejection of protectionism and fostering an open and free global trade regime. The IMF and the World Bank should be reformed to better reflect the contemporary global power configuration. Necessary measures must be taken to mitigate global imbalance in order to forestall trade or currency wars. Similarly, an early conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) negotiations is imperative to ensure sustainable growth, job creation and balanced development of the world economy.

Second, Korea will position itself as an honest broker to bridge the divide between developed and developing countries. As an OECD country that has achieved industrialisation and democracy in a short span of time, Korea has much to offer. The host country’s principled position is that emerging, developing and low-income countries must be an important part of the solution and considered equal partners in achieving a more resilient and balanced global economy.

It is in this context that President Lee Myung-Bak, as Chair of the G20, proposed the inclusion of two agenda items closely related with the interests of developing countries: the formation of a global safety net, and development issues. The global safety net aims at countering capital flow volatility and providing emergency support for developing economies hit by external financial crises. The latter is to narrow the development gap with differentiated strategy focused on growth and capacity building.

Third, Korea is trying its best to ensure the full participation of all stakeholders in the world economy to firm up the G20 process. Since the Pittsburgh Summit in 2009, Korea has been engaged in extensive outreach activities geared towards non-member countries and various regional and international organisations. In order to mobilise the resources of the private sector, a G20 Business Summit is being planned where top global business leaders will discuss current issues of global economy related to trade and investment, finance, green growth and corporate social responsibility.

India is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the G20 process. The improvement of its rank to the eighth position from the current 11th in the IMF quota shares is just one example. As newcomers and representatives of emerging markets, Korea and India have a common interest in putting the G20 on a more solid foundation by enhancing its legitimacy and sustainability. In particular, promoting the development agenda is important to accelerate global growth and reverse the three-decade trend of worsening equity between the developed and developing world. Failing this, the G20 will be perceived as an expansion of the rich nations club or another avatar of G7 or G8. On this front, Korea is looking forward to a continued and proactive role of India as a leader of thought.

All eyes are now set on the upcoming Seoul Summit. The outcome of the Summit will have profound implications for the future trajectory of the G20 and world economy. Korea is fully committed to make it a great success. Only the success of the Seoul Summit would put paid to the scepticism and doubt in some quarters, and accelerate the transformation of the G-20 from a crisis-management grouping into the global governance architecture in the true sense of the word.