Radiation fears spark panic buying, evacuations in Tokyo (Reuters)

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 3:01 AM By dwi

TOKYO (Reuters) – Panic swept Yeddo on weekday after a rise in hot levels around an earthquake-hit thermonuclear noesis being northerly of the city, causing some to yield the top or stock up on matter and supplies.

Embassies wise body to yield strained areas, tourists cut short vacations and some planetary companies told body to move from Yeddo discover after baritone levels of irradiation were detected in digit of the world's biggest and most densely populated cities.

In digit clew of the panic, Don Quixote, a multistory, 24-hour general accumulation in Tokyo's Roppongi district, was oversubscribed discover of radios, flashlights, candles, render cans and sleeping bags on weekday as a Reuters reportable visited the shop.

Tourists much as Christy Niver, of Egan, Minnesota, said they had had enough. Her 10-year-old daughter, Lucy, was more emphatic.

"I'm scared. I'm so scared I would rather be in the receptor of a tornado," she said. "I poverty to leave."

Winds over the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power complex, most 240 km (150 miles) northerly of Tokyo, are blowing tardily southwesterly toward Yeddo but module shift westerly later on Tuesday, a weather official said.

Some scientists, however, urged Yeddo to meet calm.

"Radioactive touchable module accomplish Yeddo but it is not harmful to human bodies because it module be indulgent by the instance it gets to Tokyo," said Koji Yamazaki, academic at Hokkaido University graduate school of environmental science.

"If the twine gets stronger, it means the touchable flies faster but it module be modify more distributed in the air."

University of Yeddo academic of bioengineering Hiroyuki Takahashi added: "If the thermonuclear render remains contained, there module be rattling lowercase upbeat risk."

FLEEING TOKYO

The Slavonic Symphony Orchestra mitt Yeddo by charabanc for Ishikawa prefecture on the westerly coast.

"Some of them desired to go home after the seism but it's pretty much impossible to intend tickets for a cardinal people now," said Hitomi Sakuma, a friend of the orchestra who was sight them off at a Yeddo hotel.

About 350 Japan-based expatriates at Infosys Technologies Ltd, India's second-largest software services exporter, are backward to India, its chief executive said.

"Some of them hit returned, some are in the effect of coming back," S. Gopalakrishnan told Reuters. "The income from Japan is rattling diminutive and overall it module hit a bottom effect on business." U.S. banking colossus Citigroup said it was keeping workers in Yeddo informed but there were no voiding orders, said a spokesman, adding the slope was intimately following counselling by the U.S. Embassy, which has not urged nationals to leave.

Some planetary journalists covering the hardship from the worst-hit location around the northeastern city of Sendai, devastated by Friday's large seism and wave that killed at least 10,000, were pulling out.

The Yeddo duty of Michael Page International, a British recruitment agency, was closing for the week. "I am leaving for island tomorrow," said digit employee.

Levels of irradiation had risen in Yeddo but for today were "not a problem," the city polity said. Radiation in Saitama, near Tokyo, was 40 nowadays connatural levels -- not enough to drive human alteration but enough to stoke panic in the bustling, ultra-modern and hyper-efficient metropolis of most 12 meg people.

STRANDED AIRLINE PASSENGERS

Some Yeddo supermarkets had discover of rice, a Asian staple. Yoshiyuki Sakuma, a performer who lives in Yashio city in Saitama prefecture, meet northerly of Tokyo, was intelligent markets for clams in digit regularise of the city.

"If you retrograde electricity, liquid and gas, at least you crapper ease take bread," he said.

The land Embassy wise citizens to leave. The Teutonic Embassy urged its nationals to study doing the same, especially those with families. China's embassy asked said Asiatic should obey any voiding visit if issued.

Some desired the polity to modify the 30 km voiding zone close the thermonuclear plant. "The voiding zone haw not be enough," said a Hiroshima-based Asian scientist who treats thermonuclear irradiation victims.

The number of stranded passengers at Tokyo's important planetary airport at Narita was rising but exclusive China's national airline Air China and Taiwan's EVA Airways were famous to hit canceled flights to Tokyo. Others said they were monitoring the situation.

Flights way into Yeddo were nearly blank of seats. "I am afeard to go back," Makoto Usui, 74-year-old expose individual as he was most to board a grace in Hong Kong to Tokyo. "I don't what to expect. It module be a changed country."

The worst thermonuclear accident since the Chernobyl hardship in Ukraine in 1986 has worn critique that polity were ill-prepared and revived debate most the country of atomic power.

(Additional reporting by Junko Fujita, Mayumi Negishi, Kei Okamura and Jon Herskovitz; Writing by Jason Szep; Editing by Nick Macfie)


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