Millions in Japanese cold struggle without electricity, heat

When Japan lost a large chunk of its electricity-generating capacity to the one-two punch of earthquake and tsunami, the narrative in parts of one of the world’s most technologically advanced societies was transformed overnight into one of Third World hardship.

For most Japanese, the rolling outages instituted in the wake of the twin disasters translate to inconvenience, sacrifice and economic loss. But for tens of thousands who are now homeless and huddled in evacuation centers in the hard-hit northeast, the stakes are much higher.

“In known evacuation centers, people who reached actual evacuation centers, you have a half million Japanese displaced. They don’t have water, they don’t have electricity, they don’t have oil,” said Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Japan Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “And the temperatures are… dipping below freezing because it’s snowing in most of those regions. So there’s an acute humanitarian crisis today in Japan.”

Nuclear plant occupies engineers
The difficulties don’t end there. Engineers with the Tokyo Electric Power Co., who normally might be working to get shut-down nuclear plants back online, are instead occupied with a meltdown at the company’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant

Interactive: How a nuclear plant works

And for the aid organizations who seek to help the displaced, the lack of power in the quake zone and freezing temperatures are one more reason to rush, and one more challenge to face.

The disaster that struck Japan on Friday knocked out about one-fifth of the country’s 55 nuclear reactors, which normally provide nearly 30 percent of the total power in the country. It also clobbered many thermal plants and knocked out an unknown portion of Japan’s electricity transmission system.

1.  Size, magnitude
   A massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake — fifth largest since 1900 — struck at 2:46 p.m. local time Friday (12:46 a.m. ET), centered approximately 100 miles east of Sendai city on Japan’s main island, Honshu.

   Tsunami
   The quake generated a tsunami of at least 23 feet that swept boats, cars, buildings and tons of debris miles inland in Japan. Smaller swells struck other Pacific Rim countries and even the United States, causing serious but far less extensive damage.

   Casualties
   Police have confirmed approximately 3,300 deaths, but government officials have estimated that at least 10,000 people have been killed.

   Nuclear plants
   The fuel rods at three nuclear reactors at the Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant are believed to be in various stages of melting, and a spent fuel pool at a fourth reactor has been damaged and was leaking radioactivity. Authorities have ordered the evacuation of a 19-mile radius around the plant.

   Other impacts
   Transportation and communications systems were largely paralyzed and large swaths of the country remain without power — estimates range from 1.2 million to 4 million households. Rolling blackouts have been imposed to conserve power around Tokyo and northern Honshu. Some commodities, including gas, are scarce. The Japanese government estimates that 1.4 million households have no access to safe drinking water.

In the northern part of the country, in addition to powerless evacuation centers, the Japanese government said Monday that some 1.25 million homes were without heat, and nearly 3.2 million people were facing reduced gas supplies in the coming days. Other estimates put the number of homes already without power two to three times higher.

In the city of Ishinomaki, previously home to about 164,000 people, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported Monday that survivors seeking heat and shelter crowded into a Red Cross hospital, which was one of the only buildings in the city that still had power.

Video: At least 15,000 people missing in Japan (on this page)

In addition to those with no electricity, customers in many parts of the country are having to cope with three-hour rolling blackouts instituted Monday by TEPCO, the largest power company of 10 in the country and the operator of the Fukushima plants. It said Monday that the rolling blackouts would affect 3 million customers, including large factories and buildings, and would likely continue through the end of April.

On Tuesday a second utility, Tohuku Electric Power Co. said it would also implement electricity rationing, Kyodo News Service reported. Tohuku covers a large swath of the country north of Tokyo, including many of the areas hardest hit by the tsunami.

Tohoku Electric officials said power rationing could run for several months — with outages of up to six hours a day in some prefectures, Kyodo reported, while the company worked to restore quake-damages thermal plants. Company officials said, however, that the rolling blackouts would exclude quake hit areas that are trying to recover.

“What’s probably going on in Japan is they are trying to get as much power as they can to as many people as they can,” said Walt Pollock, a retired vice president of power supply for Portland General Electric Co. “So they implement the rolling blackouts … to spread the pain.”

Replacing lost generating capacity suffered in the quake is a long-term problem — especially in the nuclear sector, where seriously damaged plants are unlikely to be repaired or restarted, he said.

“There’s no easy answers to how Japan would get … the kind power that 5 (to) 8 nuclear power plants provide,” said Pollock. “The number of nuclear plants they have off line is far greater than the generating capacity of the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest single power generating plant in the (U.S.) Northwest.”

There is not much information yet to predict how long it might take to restore some power to sections of Japan that were taken off line by the disaster.

“There are no completely isolated parts of the grid,” said Michael Levi, senior fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Japan has greater interconnection throughout the country than, let’s say, in the United States.”

“The big open question is, what impact has the physical destruction had on the grid itself” he adds. “So even if in theory you can wheel power from one part to another, if some of the transmission lines are down… that can make that task much more difficult.”

By Kari Huus