Tsunami | featured news

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced a full meltdown at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.

U.N. inspectors faulted Japan on Wednesday for underestimating the threat of a devastating tsunami on its crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant but praised its overall response to the crisis as exemplary....

Ratings agency Fitch on Friday cut its outlook on Japan's sovereign debt, warning that the vast cost of a March earthquake and tsunami and the still-unknown bill for the clean-up after the nuclear disaster would further strain the country's already shaky public finances.

Sony is expecting an annual loss of $3.2 billion, reversing its earlier projection of a return to profit, as the electronics giant struggles with production disruptions from Japan's tsunami and a hacker attack on its online gaming service.

A worker at Japan's tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant died on Saturday, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said, bringing the death toll at the complex to three since a massive earthquake and tsunami in March.

Toyota Motor Co may slip to No. 3 in the automaker production rankings behind General Motors and Volkswagen due to Japan's earthquake and nuclear crisis, which slashed local output by almost two-thirds in March alone.

Japan's shelters are still packed, with no firm word on when evacuees may return home. Cleaning up the most serious nuclear accident since Chernobyl is likely to take decades and cost Japan an untold fortune.

Japan's cabinet approved on Friday almost $50 billion of spending for post-earthquake rebuilding, a down payment on the country's biggest public works effort in six decades.

The death toll from Japan's March quake and tsunami rose to nearly 14,000 today. Robots sent into the damaged nuclear plant found record high radiation.

Most Japanese want a new prime minister to lead the massive rebuilding needed after last month's earthquake and tsunami, newspaper polls showed on Monday, as the head of government was again scolded in parliament for his handling of the disaster.