Koby Earthquake News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Reactor that was on the critical list, as it were. the cooling systems appeared to be working perfectly well. and then at some point for reasons that we don't fully understand, the cooling system that was being used stopped working and a backup failed to kick in. as a last resort in that case, they had to stop putting sea water in. what's worrying is we knew they had problems supplying the pumps with electricity. now it appears there may have been actual damage to the pumping systems or perhaps electrical components that caused either by the earthquake or tsunami. >> so, what's the -- i mean, ...

In the u.s.? i know some of this must have kept you up late at night as fema director. >> yeah, it did. and the thing of it is here in the united states, particularly california, oregon and washington state, and even in arkansas, and even in the city of new york has earthquake fault, so 1811, 1812 in arkansas we had an 8.0 earthquake. it rang the bells on the churches in boston. right now we found a new fault in arkansas, they call it the guy fault, that just recently had a 5.8 and they're having like hundreds a day of smaller quakes. and that fault line's getting bigger. but it was an unknown...

Radiation exposurexposure. nine tested positive and health authorities are already distributing iodine tablets as an antidote. they were told to close doors and windows, put a wet towel over their mouth and cover up. they announced rolling power outages and called this japan's most difficult moment since world war ii. today catastrophe in japan. the latest from ambassador -- >> this is the worst earth quake we have had. >> and expert take on the nuclear hazard and lessons for america with former fema director james lee witt. and jon kyl, democratic leader dick durbin. i'm candy crowley. and ...

For anything this big or is it that japan was not quite there in terms of preparedness? what's your take? >> well, you know, candy, after the koby earthquake, president clinton sent me over there. japan has the most stringent seismic earthquake codes as anyone. in japan as well as united states we have inherited a stock of buildings that were built before the new seismic codes and getting those buildings retrofitted is extremely important. they have buildings, as well as we do, that are not up to the type of code they need to be. >> let me bring you here to the u.s. because i think in general,...

Comes to mind is cher nobeb che that's unhelpful. almost inreceivable we would have a reactor spewing radiation everywhere. that outcome is unbelievably unlikely in this case. >> can you tell from -- look, this is a country that suffered first an earthquake and then a tsunami. now is having all these aftershocks that are quite large. so, the question is, it seems like the pumping system has failed in more than two, but in these two in particular. so, did it fail because the system doesn't work or did it fail because there's some things that a reactor can't handle and, you know, a huge earthqua...