Power connections raise hopes of end to Japan nuclear crisis

In making the announcement after days of anxious waiting, the Tokyo Electric Power Company warned, however, that much needed to be done before the electricity could be turned on, allowing the cooling systems to start up again.

Workers were checking all additional equipment for damage to make sure the cooling systems can be safely operated.

In another advance, emergency teams dumped tons of seawater into a nearly boiling storage pool holding spent nuclear fuel, cooling it to 50C, Japan’s nuclear safety agency said. Steam, possibly carrying radioactive elements, had been rising for two days from the reactor building, and the move lessens the chances that more radiation will seep into the air.

Added up, the power and concerted dousing bring authorities closer to ending a nuclear crisis that has complicated the government’s response to the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan’s north-east coast 11 days ago.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex has leaked radiation that has found its way into vegetables, raw milk, the water supply and even seawater across a swathe of Japan. The resulting fears of radiation mean the impact has reverberated well beyond the disaster area and the families of the hundreds of thousands of displaced and of the estimated 18,000 dead.

“We must overcome this crisis that we have never experienced in the past, and it’s time to make a nationwide effort,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said in his latest remarks meant to soothe public anxieties.

The edginess was palpable in the town of Kawamata, just outside the city of Fukushima. Hundreds of people who had been moved from their homes near the nuclear plant 50 miles away crowded into a school gym to hear about the impact of radiation on health from a doctor from Nagasaki, the city destroyed by an atomic bomb to end the Second World War.

Noboru Takamura told them: “I want to tell you that you are safe. You don’t need to worry. The levels of radiation here are clearly not high enough to cause damage to your health.

“Outside the 30-kilometre (19-mile) zone, there is no need to hang your laundry indoors or wear surgical masks – unless you have hay fever.”

Virtually everyone in the hall was wearing a mask.

While schools, gymnasiums and other community buildings remain packed with displaced people, in the 11 days since the disasters the numbers of people staying in shelters has halved to 268,510, as many move in with relatives and friends in a bid to return to some semblance of normality.

Eleven days after the disaster, more than 9,000 bodies have been found, but some 12,600 people are still missing. Police estimate more than 15,000 deaths are likely just in Miyagi, one of the worst-hit provinces.

Some of the missing will turn up elsewhere , in hospitals, or staying with relatives, or will have been on holiday. More bodies will be found too as rescue operations shift to the grim work of clean-up, digging through tons of rubble and muck.

In Miyagi prefecture, one of the areas worst hit by the Tsunami, it emerged that thieves took £250,000 from a bank vault left wide open by the disaster.

The earthquake and tsunami crippled the bank’s security mechanisms and opened the vault.