good. tonight meltdown fears of the fukushima nuclear power plant in japan grow off the water levels drop leaving fuel was exposed for several hours. to human cost of the devastation in japan is being felt with almost two thousand people confirmed dead following friday's major quake and tsunami rescue teams from countries including russia are helping with the search for an estimated fifteen thousand still missing. another new computer graphics false signal gaining ground in libya concerns grow over what's next for the leader condemned while the global community takes over the country once again.

welcome this is r t it's no ten pm here in moscow this monday night time kevin zero in on our top story dominating the coverage again the threats of a melt tonight the fukushima power plant in japan is rising after water levels drop significantly exposing fuel rods and increasing fears of radiation spread now that news follows a blast of another reactor at the site which injured eleven people radiation levels are reported to be he said one hundred sixty people could have been exposed to radiation since the first explosion hit the facility in northeastern japan saturday engineers have been trying to you see water to cool the reactors at the complex to avert a catastrophic nuclear meltdown events were triggered by friday's mega quake which was then followed by a giant signal me and this two thousand people now confirmed dead but that number's expected to rise dramatically and that means that fifteen thousand missing houses

are the bennetts in sendai some of the towns worst affected by the huge wave. another reactor at the fukushima power plant number one reactor is now in danger of overheating it's lost its cooling mechanism which is crucial to stopping nuclear meltdown and what this means it could lead to overheating and another explosion similar to the two other blasts we've already seen one could happen now what they're doing to try and prevent that is by pouring on c. water into the reactor to try and cool it down. but that's what they did to the other two plants unfortunately that didn't prevent any explosion however the explosion a did happen earlier today according to the government the nuclear reactor that holds the radioactive material is still intact which is crucial to preventing a major nuclear catastrophe. and people were injured in that explosion happened

on the electric south something. they say the radiation levels are within the legal limits in fact significantly lowered. a warning. on top of that they are evacuating a huge area twenty kilometers radius. around the nuclear power plant. and two hundred people join a thousand people have been evacuated to safety how the six hundred people still remain in the area they want to be accurate quick enough so they've been told to stay inside so it's not be exposed to any radiation we know also that the radiation has leaked out more thought are afield and that according to the new york times and reuters a u.s. aircraft carrier off the japanese coast hundred sixty comes into the pacific ocean . with a geiger counter they naish just in a cloud of smoke that radiation was above the normal levels. still standing on tank

crews crewmembers received radiation absorbed about the same as they would do normally in a month so they're part normal but not at a critical level here panic being shown by people lining up outside supermarkets swanky we saw at the main st martin's center town with a kilometer long and that's no exaggeration people have been queuing up overnight to try and stock up on things so people are obviously concerned potentially the spread of radiation mine i mean they have to stand side or another quake could lead to food shortages already there are food sources in town and in this whole prefecture in fact one man yes we met on a troll seventy kilometers to stock up on food and. right now several of the food shops are limiting people to five items maximum and then having to queue up hours it's time to get into the source so obviously there is some level of panic people

on sewing it on the surface but they're definitely concerned to be there so much so they have been stocking up on food and also fuel on our way here yet last night we saw a long queue of cars again about the current climate along outside one of the few petrol stations that were they were open in the fukushima prefecture and there only being limited to twenty liters each shift and so we are parsis the army troops and police ok police even as well lining the streets are going through the case they're having people out there saying people can't make their way we were trying to get there the film pictures of the the devastation caused by the tsunami three days ago and every sort of two hundred metres or so that there are police telling diverting us and think back but the damage is that. you don't get a real feel for us yet. we're very. the tsunami

completely wiped out everything in our very being so i'm. going yeah right in my being critical. still being called seeing what appears to be in. the david thank you for the embers and didn't really realise the power of the must. we'll be until you actually see these pictures and we saw people fifteen through one of the remains of what was then they were. as well and. he is being washed up seven kilometers inland so clearly the families. are. building. pretty much.

infrastructure now i can see on the road starting. fresh and still trains are still known. to soften country another tsunami. reporting. on high alert in russia's far east to region close to northern japan they say that the danger of a possible radioactive cloud reaching the area is minimal because of the moment the winds expected to blow towards the pacific ocean but despite that some tourists and foreign workers are said to be leaving the area our correspondent in country has got more from sakhalin region less than a hundred kilometers north of. the margin says ministry say they have reinforced check so the radiation levels here and say that as of now they stand at last the average for this area but not residents of this region choose to leave we had seen people sitting on their backs today. and they were desperate to get the

first light food and. other cities up this for the locals here most of them try not to panic and to run about their businesses as usual and they also say that . seeing in japan. to what they had been through several years ago. this is how a trust looks like you can hardly see the needle tracing the waveform as a hard morning torkel that is listening for every beat but things can change quickly. everyone else seen in the real time a new earthquake is hitting japan this is the wave traced it's strong it has a magnitude of six point five. this is what in the wake of magnitude nine translates into. my if you were to live there or not only. has been running the say speak station in russia or at least over twenty years now

but even for him friday is events came as a painful and vivid reminder he and his old time friend survived an earthquake of similar intensity and civilian in one thousand nine hundred ninety one they don't need t.v. reports to know what the people of japan are experiencing now. but you wish it was a sustained sense of vertigo ceilings were caving in at first they made their rush to my daughters i grabbed the older one while my wife took our new one and rushed into the streets thank god would have been the first floor for. euro two was lucky to back it quickly but dozens of their friends what barrett a life. morning drove to the innocent and if the ghost were in a car with us we arrived and there was nothing the time was no longer there we will start hollering and men clenched their faces trying to say a word what used to be streets were crowded and then shouting to earth just. then

if you go risk earthquake was russia's most destructive in a hundred years over two thousand people died the town was never a built but the c. suite station was real it was shut down shortly after the collapse of the soviet union and you re was left with out of the earthquake changed all that. not only was the station reinstated dozens of new recruits had already built these times moscow called several times a day. they are always on high alert old fully better than the america's most asians was the first to report the quake was so quickly felt in civilian as this is the closest part of russia to japan and while it's an army threat has receded there's no relief for the people here with the danger now one of nuclear catastrophe everyone here understands that in the worst case scenario it will take

a radioactive cloud less than an hour to reach the coast of russia exceeding the chill of r r t from the sea region. russian president says that russia will do what it can to help its eastern neighbor. was goals i spoke to the japanese prime minister facing a tragedy in dijon just to be on a national scale the whole goal now is to help our neighbors i have already ordered the government to assist boosting the energy delivery system to help cope with power shortages in the wake of the disaster. and the promise of a team of putin's already ordered extra shipments of gas to japan while asserting that the situation won't affect russia's plans to develop its nuclear energy. we are not going to change our plans go developing nuclear energy but we'll schools are monitoring don't make you conclude from the situation in japan on specialists are in close contact with their colleagues in japan. russia selling its nuclear

experts to japan to help deal with the unstable fukushima power plant already considered by some the most serious nuclear accident since chernobyl twenty five years ago artie's alexia cesky next looks back at that tragedy. a painful trip down memory lane alexander often goes to the thirty kilometer or noble exclusion zone in ukraine but every visit evokes sad emotions twenty five years ago what is now the ghost town of pretty bad which was his home before the chernobyl fallout changed everything. you know i didn't come here just to take photos and it still feels like home. i spent my best chance of years here a long time. and even those who've never been here before come and feel the karmic . silly want to come back here. alexander is one of hundreds of thousands whose

address changed to april twenty sixth one thousand nine hundred sixty three is one of the youngest districts in the late one nine hundred eighty s. houses sprung up here literally overnight many of those who had to leave their homes in the chernobyl area found their home here a total of three hundred thousand people had to be resettled from the contaminated blood and this new life came at a high price for some reason the soviet authorities meddled with the evacuation from the contaminated zone fifty thousand residents and a town just three kilometers from the exploded reactor were subjected to a great deal of radiation the town's former deputy mayor says this dreadful mistake was caused by a mass confusion which followed the blast. of those who asked the question don't quite understand what it takes to evacuate as many as fifty thousand people simply can't do it in one hour or in two hours of a life we brought thirty one hundred boxes here from here we had to inform people

bring them together and in the first place we had to understand whether we actually needed the evacuation or even specialists in the first stages didn't know whether the reactor was a steroid a quarter of a century since the disaster the thirty kilometer area around the plant is a nuclear wasteland the four hour period for radioactive particles is believed to last several thousand years so this land would hardly ever be inhabited again however some like this elderly man were not put off by the radioactive threat and decided to return after the soviet union collapsed. when i was moved here they gave me a fly. and a miserable pensioner not enough to make a normal living that's why we returned home is here and we grow unity besides nowadays more people come to the zone because most but all that many stop worrying is some food and money. as the news of a nuclear incident at the fukushima plant in japan broke out the first thing the

authorities did was to evacuated residents within twenty kilometers off the facility twenty five years ago people of the affected area were less fortunate the reaction of the japanese government suggests that the lessons of chernobyl have decades later been learned less serious ascii r.t. reporting from kiev ukraine john large as an independent nuclear consultant in london he told me what we're seeing now is a japanese government that's lost a gamble between technology and nature. the consequences are difficult to predict to the moment because the japanese government is being thorough quiet and not releasing information but really that's quite in contrast to its actions we've seen the evacuation zone around the reactors at this plant expanded from three to ten to twenty kilometers we've seen extraordinary actions are taken to try and close the plant putting seawater in front of all as they are they just really written these plants off that's a total bill including clean up about sixteen billion u.s.

dollars equivalent this is the challenge of nuclear technology i mean what we do in design in these owners of nuclear plants and i did this myself you do a balance for the public you gamble against the really bad accident against the plant operating correctly in other words you assume that the unsinkable ship will never sing because the titanic sank and it's that sort of gamblin if you get that wrong then you have these large disasters occur in. chill bernese in independence atomic energy consultant from scotland who told me that japan's nuclear crisis is much worse than officials are suggesting. the situation in japan is absolutely critical the state of the fuel at reactor number three that exploded last night we know that for many hours half of the core was exposed so there's a very strong possibility that her fuel that has melted has already moved around

the reactor pressure vessel and is now at the base of that reactor vessel that is called that could cause huge problems and of course major radiological releases but remember according to international standards there is no safe threshold for man need radiation so any tools including the dose that hit the sailors on board u.s.s. ronald reagan that could have health consequences we're not going to i don't dare ed but on the ship. the idea that to communicate that there's no risk from any radiation is clearly wrong the consequences are that the fuel is no longer being cooled see a very energetic nuclear fuel within this core in the reactor we asked me to be eighty to ninety tons of highly radioactive fuel it will be heating up over a period of time over hours it will get to a point during which it will be producing gases those gases will be building up

pressure inside the pressure vessel in unit to. the question is at what point will the not be able to retain the pressure and there were cause possibly be a third explosion. you know we're following the latest developments in japan since the massive earthquake and tsunami hit the country causing explosions at the fukushima power plant and fears rise that exposed fuel rods that one of the reactors might eventually lead to a meltdown spring up today with the latest we know that explosion was caused by the water levels in reactor number two dropping significantly on monday earlier reactor number three was hit by a bridge or blasted into the eleven people up to one hundred sixty have now been exposed to radiation since the first explosion hit the passivity in northeastern japan saturday and the radiation level is said to be increasing events were triggered by friday's mega quake which was followed by a giant tsunami that left almost two thousand people dead but the numbers are expected to rise dramatically as the rescue teams from several countries including

russia continue the search for the thousands still missing as i say we'll bring you updates on the situation in japan as the news comes out as well as bring it good opinion and analysis throughout the program. as they look at some of the main news now your big story of course libya that continues the ongoing problems there with the strength of colonel gadhafi is offensive continues to overwhelm rebel forces across the country have been reports of fresh air strikes by as militaries fronts host talks on the imposition of a no fly zone over libya let's bring in our correspondent in tripoli paula sleep paula evening to you so it seems doesn't it that the military strength of good draftees forces is beginning to overwhelm rebel opposition. well let's look it does seem to be the case we know now that government troops have been trying throughout the day to retake the town of the lara which is waste of the capital city tripoli be there they've been using tanks and artillery as part of a stepped up campaign to rid the western front of tripoli from rebel forces but at

the same time fighting in the east of the country does continue there the government has been pounding the oil town although there have also been clashes in the town of which is the last of the label stronghold before the town of being ghazi which is essentially where the opposition forces have a headquarters now we have been hearing reports of divisions within the gadhafi forces according to opposition leaders some sixty thousand people had expected that is in the state of because of the army the soldiers that are out there on the ground now it's not clear whether or not they have joined the rebel forces in fact most people here suspect they haven't but rather a feeling that they do not want to be firing on these opposition fighters the major problem that essentially is fighting gadhafi streets is a lack of manpower they seem to be very successful in pushing the rebel forces back away from towns but they're not so successful in actually keeping them away and that is why the stance on the ground and certainly the fear among the rebels is

that in the coming days gadhafi will could unleash the full force of his army which he has done so far ok paula if colonel gadhafi does stay in power is going to be some obama faces of the international community that so that absolutely . will certainly what we saw most of monday is that russian and phones have pushed up cause to implement a no fly zone over libya and they are calling for the quick draw off to a u.n. resolution but this will need to be approved by the u.n. security council and at this stage it does not seem clear that it in fact will get us approval for the u.s. agency of state hillary clinton met on monday with the french president nicholas all cozy she also held and i mean. no meeting with the leadership of the rebel opposition but fans of the stage is the only country to officially recognize the libyan opposition as the official voice of this country and many in the international community uncertainty on the ground say that tyra's acted rashly with

very short sightedness in making this decision the questions that are being asked are there just remain in town hall or how will fans behave with the dusty's regime in the future essentially how the international community that has denounced him paid and negotiate with him on the flip side of the point if gadhafi had to go it's not very clear who would be the new leadership here many people fearing that it will be some kind of a leadership vacuum because each remember that the opposition remains just jointers they are in eclipse and they simply are ill prepared to take over the running of this country. closely reporting on from tripoli friends of ribs of the boat every wall from japan for the renewing our t. and of course also on our website our. growth occasions of what's happening in japan are also having a knock on not only for the businesses where we bring your business bulletin shortly after this quick break.

well let's. see. live. morning news today violence is once again flared up

live these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. today live. hello and welcome to business i'd say it's good to have your company japan's economy is facing its biggest challenge since world war two after being hit by one of the biggest earthquakes in history well the country's infrastructure is seriously damaged the nation's industrial clusters in the south and the west seem to have been spared the worst japan's until bank injected the market with one hundred eighty three billion dollars for additional liquidity by flooding the banking system with castro hopes banks will continue lending money and meet the likely surge in demand for post earthquake funds and she also remains a concern due to the crisis of damaged nuclear plants north of tokyo which could

set back all sectors of the economy meanwhile russia says it's ready to help japan with additional supplies of natural gas. and money but. we're now looking at ways to support japan with additional energy supplies gazprom will deliver an additional two hundred thousand tonnes of liquefied natural gas in april and may so we're now developing ways to increase supply capacity the difficulty is that most of the gas we currently deliver is already distributed through existing contracts so we will have to hold talks with our partners to review some of the contracts because the price for light sweet crude is retreated to one hundred one dollars per barrel on fears of a drop in demand in japan but chris we thought were also believes the price of black gold will not show a significant downturn at the moment due to the situation in middle east as a remains unstable. main driver in the oil market right now is still the middle east in focus in the middle east and the threat of supply disruption and

particularly i think what helped the oil price from falling last friday and over the weekend is this news in the west spreading to saudi arabia eastern province its biggest oil production region so that threat of destruction in the middle east is still the dominant factor and that's avoided big of price for oil and in the oil price right. so you have the markets now we start with asia's reaction to the situation in japan the nikkei closed down more than six percent on monday to a two year low as investors expected the earthquake and tsunami to take a toll on the economy japanese carmakers electronics and oil refiners saw some of their shares drop by double digit percentages but the reaction in hong kong was subdued as the hang seng index closed point two percent up u.s. troops are lower in monday's session on worries about japan's economy led by a pullback in utilities food drops in general electric it's down three percent the

company designed all six of the reactors at the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant in japan. russia is not going to show you a different picture even despite the drop in the oil price not just in my six in the season was managed to gain some point eight point four percent respectively most energy shares were up despite world decreasing slightly after a sharp fall on friday last problem advanced by the most in more than two weeks as the government asked the company to consider increasing liquefied natural gas shipments to japan up nor cynical was up three percent on reports that a big investors about to buy up shares in the company bank however is down one point seven percent. there was a lot of pain because you know and you can use more of the morning with those in the. group use it wolf actually throw that across the brush in the world to seal. yeah japan going up and down the same japanese security going up and down as well outside of the g. twenty six market and saw the same happen in russia as well we've seen actually

that the ruble went up and down the russian stock market went up and down and the reason was that people didn't really know how to react because people didn't know what quite the expense extent of the damage. was going to be because of course for the world economy for the russian economy is no vested interest have a lot of idea what to do really it wasn't much of a trend this really was a lot of volatility. and a third party has stepped into the long lasting battle between the billionaires losing a part time and the length that it passed her for control over i wish i was a man of says his. investors planning to increase its share in the world's top nickel producer a company already four percent of small if we agreed to work together with that of pascoe and questions would make sense to more cynical strategy he wants to boost the state has he seeks to merge russia's biggest natural producers into a huge company a move that in part because of the recent nor cynical shareholder meeting weapons

ban apparently managed to strengthen his position twenty five percent of those it was currently owned by likely to pass because i think i was holding a first percent stake as a from the business desk but now kevin is next with the headlines after this very short break.