Japan | featured news

A tide of bodies washed up along Japan's coastline, crematoriums were overwhelmed and rescue workers ran out of body bags as the nation faced the grim reality of its mounting humanitarian, economic and nuclear crisis Monday after a calamitous tsunami....

Last week's earthquake in Japan could lead to insured losses of nearly $35 billion, risk modeling company AIR Worldwide said, making it one of the most expensive catastrophes in history.

Japan’s nuclear safety agency has confirmed that a hydrogen explosion has occurred at the No. 3 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, a 5 meter tidal wave is said to be on the way to northern Japan’s eastern coast.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary says a hydrogen explosion has occurred at Unit 3 of Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The blast was similar to an earlier one at a different unit of the facility.

Japan's central bank injected a record 7 trillion yen ($85.5 billion) into money markets and the Tokyo stock market nosedived Monday on the first business day since an earthquake and tsunami devastated the country's northeast and raised dire worries about the economy.

The massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that shook Japan and triggered a powerful tsunami on Friday has had a profound effect on both the surrounding terrain and the planet as a whole. Dr. Daniel McNamara, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, told The Huffington Post that the disaster left a gigantic rupture in the sea floor, 217-miles long and 50 miles wide.

The last-ditch move indicates that the backup cooling system in a second quake-damaged reactor has failed. Japanese officials say radiation levels at another reactor being pumped with seawater have fallen, but hydrogen gas is building in a third.

After seeing oil prices skyrocket from days of turmoil in Libya, investors now must grapple with political protests in the world's top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, and the impact of Japan's biggest earthquake on record.

Fifteen members of China’s International search and Rescue Team took off for Japan Sunday morning to help its neighbor clean up from one of its biggest natural disasters in a generation, the Xinhua news agency reports.

Google on Saturday released its first satellite images of Japan since the devastation that followed a massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit the island nation Friday afternoon local time.