Ash cloud to shut German airports, snarls British air travel

 A cloud of ash from Iceland's Grimsvotn volcano spread toward central Europe late Tuesday, spurring German authorities to announce two airports will close and prompting British airlines to cancel hundreds of flights. Hamburg International Airport will shut down at 6 a.m. Wednesday (midnight Tuesday ET), while Bremen's airport will close at 5 a.m., Germany's Aviation Safety Agency announced. Berlin's airport could be affected by the falling ash by noon Wednesday, the agency said.
A portion of the ash from Saturday's eruption in Iceland had spread over Britain by Tuesday afternoon, with the cloud reaching London's Heathrow airport -- the world's busiest international air travel hub -- around lunchtime, a computer model indicated. The European air traffic control organization Eurocontrol reported about 500 flights in British airspace were canceled Tuesday, roughly double the number expected earlier in the day.
The ash cloud was projected to cover all of British airspace by early Wednesday morning and will be densest over Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England, according to Britain's weather agency, the Met Office. But British Airways, which sent a test flight into the region Tuesday evening, said it expects service to return to normal by Wednesday.  

Facts About Volcanoes

• There are about 1500 active volcanoes in the world that have erupted in the past 10,000 years.
• The biggest volcano in the world is Mauna Loa in Hawaii.
• More than 80% of the Earth’s surface is volcanic in origin.
• The rock debris carried by the blast of Mount St. Helen’s eruption traveled as fast as 250 miles per hour!
• More than half of the world’s active volcanoes above sea level encircle the Pacific Ocean to form the “Ring of Fire”
• Jupiter’s Moon Io is the most volcanic place in the solar system

IAEA team to review nuclear crisis in Japan

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday announced that it will dispatch an international expert fact-finding mission to Japan to review the country`s nuclear crisis. Almost 20 international and IAEA experts from a dozen countries, will visit Japan between May 24 and June 2 under the leadership of Mike Weightman, HM Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations of the United Kingdom. Based upon the agreement between the IAEA and the Government of Japan, the mission will conduct fact-finding activities at Tokyo Electric Power Company`s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS) site and in other locations. According to the IAEA, the expert mission will make a preliminary assessment of the safety issues linked with TEPCO`s Fukushima Daiichi NPS accident following the devastating March 11 9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami. During the mission, areas that need further exploration or assessment based on the IAEA safety standards will also be identified, the IAEA said. In addition, the IAEA explained that during the course of the mission, the international experts would become acquainted with the Japanese lessons learned from the accident and will share their experience and expertise in their fields of competence with the Japanese authorities. Following the nuclear review, Weightman will present the mission`s report at the Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety organized by the IAEA in Vienna, Austria from June 20 to 24 in order to strengthen the global nuclear safety framework that will be launched by the Conference. 

People return to Fukushima exclusion zone

More than 90 evacuees from the 20-kilometer no-go zone around the Fukushima nuclear power plant have been allowed to return to their homes to gather personal possessions.
The 92 residents of 52 households of Kawauchi village have been allowed a two-hour trip to the dangerous zone on Tuesday, local media report.
All of them had to sign a responsibility waiver ahead of the visit. They donned protection gear before venturing into the exclusion zone.
They could remove a handbag-worth of items, including jewelry, money or family photos. All of them passed a safety inspection after the trip.
Speaking to RT, Dr. Robert Jacobs, an Associate Professor of Nuclear History and Culture at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, explained what threats people visiting the exclusion zone and those living just outside are exposed to:
“It’s not safe. This is a situation where they are letting the people go in one time, in order to remove articles from their home – typically a designated person in a family. So, that person will certainly have some exposure during that time. It shouldn’t be sufficient in a period of going in for a few hours and leaving, to be very threatening to their health. But the real threat is to the people who live in the contaminated areas outside of the exclusion zone.
“Clearly, the levels of radiation outside of the exclusion zone are fairly high in some areas,” Dr. Jacobs added.
Meanwhile, the operator of the Fukushima plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co, has asked the government for financial aid to deal with the consequences of the disaster.
In the request, TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu called for government help in paying the US$600 million compensation to victims of the nuclear incident, reports Kyodo news agency.
As Japan is struggling to deal with the damage caused by the Fukushima situation, the country’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan has decided to do his job for free, until the crisis is over.
The cabinet head, who is facing increasing criticism from the opposition, will be returning his salary of about $40,000 to the budget, starting in June, he announced on Tuesday
The Fukushima nuclear power plant suffered from the devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11. It resulted in partial meltdown at the plant and the release of radiation into the environment in one of the worst-ever incidents of this kind in history.