Missile destroys Gaddafi building

A missile strike has destroyed a building in Libya's capital, Tripoli, which Western officials say was one of Col Muammar Gaddafi's command centres.

Journalists were shown the wrecked building but it was not clear if there were any casualties.

Countries including the US, UK and France are continuing strikes after the UN authorised action to protect Libyan civilians from government forces.

Col Gaddafi has been fighting a rebellion that broke out last month.

US officials have said Col Gaddafi himself is not a target of the air strikes, which they say are aimed at his armed forces and air defence systems.

A Libyan official said 64 people had been killed in strikes at the weekend, but the figure could not be verified.'Very effective'

On Sunday night anti-aircraft fire rose over Tripoli and several explosions were heard. A BBC reporter saw a column of smoke rising from the direction of Bab al-Aziziya, where Col Gaddafi has his military base and compound.

Western journalists taken by Libyan officials to the compound were shown a ruined three or four-storey building. It is not clear whether Col Gaddafi was there at the time of the bombing.

An official from one of the coalition countries, who asked not to be named, told journalists the strike destroyed Col Gaddafi's "command and control capability".

Earlier at the Pentagon, US Navy Vice Adm William Gortney said the coalition had control of the air space between Tripoli and the main rebel stronghold, Benghazi. "The no-fly zone is effectively in place," he said.

He added that ground forces moving on rebel positions were also open to attack.

In Misrata, a city west of Benghazi that has been under siege by government troops, residents say bombardments by pro-Gaddafi forces are continuing. A nearby air base was targeted in the first night of coalition strikes.

The BBC's Kevin Connolly in the rebel-held city of Tobruk says it is not clear if the allies can attack Col Gaddafi's troops operating in the centre of Misrata without harming the very civilians they have come to save.

And heavy gunfire and sporadic explosions were heard in Benghazi on Sunday night, a witness told Reuters news agency.

"Benghazi is not completely safe from attack but it is certainly under less threat than it was yesterday," he said.

The US says a Libyan government claim that armed forces were observing a ceasefire "isn't true or has been immediately violated".

Qatar planes

The action against Col Gaddafi's military began on Saturday afternoon with French air strikes in the east. A barrage of cruise missiles, launched from US and UK ships and submarines followed.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said that while the US will continue to play a part in operations against Col Gaddafi's forces, it "will not have the pre-eminent role".

Meanwhile, the build-up of forces to enforce the no-fly zone continues.

Qatar is to send four planes to join the coalition enforcing the UN-mandated no-fly zone, the US and France have said.

The move would make Qatar the first Arab country to play an active part in the campaign against Col Gaddafi, who has been battling a month-long revolt.

Other Arab countries are also preparing to join the campaign against Col Gaddafi, Vice Adm Gortney said.

The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle has left the Mediterranean port of Toulon for Libya, while Denmark and Norway are each sending six planes. Spain has sent at least three planes, while Italy also has jets ready to deploy. Canada has deployed six jets to Sicily and is preparing them for action.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, who supported the UN resolution, on Sunday criticised the severity of the bombardment.

"What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians," he said.

But on Monday, in a joint news conference with visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Cairo, Mr Moussa played down any differences within the coalition. "We are all united on the issue of protecting civilians," he said.

Both he and Mr Ban stressed that Arab League support was a key factor in securing Security Council backing for the UN resolution.

Col Gaddafi has ruled Libya for more than 40 years. An uprising against him began last month after the long-time leaders of neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt were toppled.

Western warplanes, missiles hit Libyan targets

(Reuters) - Western forces hit targets along the Libyan coast on Saturday, using strikes from air and sea to force Muammar Gaddafi's troops to cease fire and end attacks on civilians.

Libyan state television said 48 people had been killed and 150 wounded in the allied air strikes. It also said there had been a fresh wave of strikes on Tripoli early on Sunday.

There was no way to independently verify the claims.

CBS News on its website said on Sunday that three U.S. B-2 stealth bombers had dropped 40 bombs on a "major Libyan airfield" that was not further identified. A Pentagon spokesman said he had no information about such an attack.

French planes fired the first shots in what is the biggest international military intervention in the Arab world since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, destroying tanks and armored vehicles in the region of the rebels' eastern stronghold, Benghazi.

Hours later, U.S. and British warships and submarines launched 110 Tomahawk missiles against air defenses around the capital Tripoli and the western city of Misrata, which has been besieged by Gaddafi's forces, U.S. military officials said.

They said U.S. forces and planes were working with Britain, France, Canada and Italy in operation "Odyssey Dawn."

Gaddafi called it "colonial, crusader" aggression.

"It is now necessary to open the stores and arm all the masses with all types of weapons to defend the independence, unity and honor of Libya," he said in an audio message broadcast on state television hours after the strikes began.

China and Russia, which abstained in the U.N. Security Council vote last week endorsing intervention, expressed regret at the military action. China's Foreign Ministry said it hoped the conflict would not lead to a greater loss of civilian life.

Explosions and heavy anti-aircraft fire rattled Tripoli in the early hours of Sunday. The shooting was followed by defiant shouts of "Allahu Akbar" that echoed around the city center.

Libyan state television showed footage from an unidentified hospital of what it called victims of the "colonial enemy." Ten bodies were wrapped up in white and blue bed sheets, and several people were wounded, one of them badly, the television said.

Tripoli residents said they had heard an explosion near the eastern Tajoura district, while in Misrata they said strikes had targeted an airbase used by Gaddafi's forces.

A Reuters witness in the eastern rebel stronghold of Benghazi reported loud explosions and anti-aircraft fire, but it was unclear which side was shooting.

The intervention, after weeks of diplomatic wrangling, was welcomed in Benghazi with a mix of apprehension and relief.

"We think this will end Gaddafi's rule. Libyans will never forget France's stand with them. If it weren't for them, then Benghazi would have been overrun tonight," said Iyad Ali, 37.

"We salute France, Britain, the United States and the Arab countries for standing with Libya. But we think Gaddafi will take out his anger on civilians. So the West has to hit him hard," said civil servant Khalid al-Ghurfaly, 38.

GADDAFI SEEN LOSING GRIP ON LIBYA

The strikes, launched from some 25 ships, including three U.S. submarines, in the Mediterranean, followed a meeting in Paris of Western and Arab leaders backing the intervention.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said participants had agreed to use "all necessary means, especially military" to enforce the Security Council resolution calling for an end to attacks on civilians.

"Colonel Gaddafi has made this happen," British Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters after the meeting. "We cannot allow the slaughter of civilians to continue."

Some analysts have questioned the strategy for the military intervention, fearing Western forces might be sucked into a long civil war despite a U.S. insistence -- repeated on Saturday -- that it has no plans to send ground troops into Libya.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggested that outside powers hoped their intervention would be enough to turn the tide against Gaddafi and allow Libyans to force him out.

"It is our belief that if Mr. Gaddafi loses the capacity to enforce his will through vastly superior armed forces, he simply will not be able to sustain his grip on the country."

But analysts have questioned what Western powers will do if the Libyan leader digs in, especially since they do not believe they would be satisfied with a de facto partition which left rebels in the east and Gaddafi running a rump state in the west.

One participant at the Paris meeting said Clinton and others had stressed Libya should not be split in two. And on Friday, Obama specifically called on Gaddafi's forces to pull back from the western cities of Zawiyah and Misrata as well from the east.

"It's going to be far less straightforward if Gaddafi starts to move troops into the cities which is what he has been trying to do for the past 24 hours," said Marko Papic at the STRATFOR global intelligence group.

"Once he does that it becomes a little bit more of an urban combat environment and at that point it's going to be difficult to use air power from 15,000 feet to neutralize that."

The Libyan government has blamed rebels, who it says belong to al Qaeda, for breaking a ceasefire it announced on Friday.

In Tripoli, several thousand people gathered at the Bab al-Aziziyah palace, Gaddafi's compound bombed by U.S. warplanes in 1986, to show their support.

"There are 5,000 tribesmen that are preparing to come here to fight with our leader. They better not try to attack our country," said farmer Mahmoud el-Mansouri.

"We will open up Libya's deserts and allow Africans to flood to Europe to blow themselves up as suicide bombers."

U.S. SAYS NOT LEADING INTERVENTION

France and Britain have taken a lead role in pushing for international intervention in Libya and the United States -- after embarking on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- has been at pains to stress it is supporting, not leading, the operation.

In announcing the missile strikes, which came eight years to the day after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Obama said the effort was intended to protect the Libyan people.

"Today I authorized the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians," Obama told reporters in Brasilia, where he had begun a five-day tour of Latin America.

He said U.S. troops were acting in support of allies, who would lead the enforcement of a no-fly zone to stop Gaddafi's attacks on rebels. "As I said yesterday, we will not, I repeat, we will not deploy any U.S. troops on the ground," Obama said.

But despite Washington's determination to stress its limited role, Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, director of the U.S. military's Joint Staff, said the strikes were only a first phase.

Earlier, hundreds of cars with refugees fled Benghazi toward the Egyptian border after the city came under a bombardment from Gaddafi's forces the previous night. One family of 13 women from a grandmother to small children, rested at a roadside hotel.

"I'm here because when the bombing started last night my children were vomiting from fear," said one of them, a doctor. "All I want to do is get my family to a safe place and then get back to Benghazi to help. My husband is still there."

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas and Angus MacSwan in Benghazi, Tom Perry in Cairo, Maria Golovnina and Michael Georgy in Tripoli, Hamid Ould Ahmed and Christian Lowe in Algiers; John Irish and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris, Missy Ryan in Washington, Writing by Michael Roddy; Editing by Ron Popeski)

Courtesy of Reuters.

No One Wins Mega Millions, Jackpot Rolls to $244 Million

Columbia, SC (WLTX) - No one won Friday night's Mega Millions Jackpot, meaning the prize is going to swell further for the next drawing.

The winning numbers Friday were 14 - 33 - 34 - 54 - 56. The Mega Ball was 37.

The jackpot for the next drawing is an estimated $244 million. The cash option for that prize is $155.7 million.

The next drawing will be held on Tuesday, March 22 at 11 p.m. on WLTX.

UN approves Libya no-fly zone

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press – Thu Mar 17, 7:45 pm ET

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council voted Thursday to impose a no-fly zone over Libya and authorize "all necessary measures" to protect civilians from attacks by Moammar Gadhafi's forces, hours after the Libyan leader vowed to crush the rebellion with a final assault on the opposition capital of Benghazi.

The U.N. vote paved the way for possible international air strikes on Gadhafi's advancing military and reflected the past week's swift reversal of the situation in Libya, where once-confident rebels are now in danger of being obliterated by an overpowering pro-Gadhafi force using rockets, artillery, tanks, warplanes. That force has advanced along the Mediterranean coast aiming to recapture the rebel-held eastern half of Libya.

The resolution establishes "a ban on all flights in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in order to help protect civilians." It also authorizes U.N. member states to take "all necessary measures ... to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory."

The vote was 10-0 with five countries abstaining including Russia and China, which have veto power in the council, along with India, Germany and Brazil. The United States, France and Britain pushed for speedy approval.

In Benghazi, Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel showed a large crowd watching the vote on an outdoor TV projection burst into celebration as green and red fireworks exploded in the air.

In an interview broadcast just before the Security Council voted, Gadhafi dismissed its actions. "The U.N. Security Council has no mandate. We don't acknowledge their resolutions," he told the Portuguese public Radiotelevisao Portuguesa. He pledged to respond harshly to U.N.-sponsored attacks. "If the world is crazy, we will be crazy too," he said.

U.S. officials have said the authorization for "all necessary measures" provides a legal basis for countries to carry out air strikes to protect civilians from Gadhafi's forces.



"We had said all along that Gadhafi must go," said British Foreign Secretary William Hague. "It is necessary to take these measures to avoid greater bloodshed."

In Britain, a lawmaker with knowledge of defense matters confirmed that British forces were on stand by for air strikes and could be mobilized as soon as Thursday night. The lawmaker declined to be named because the Defense Ministry has not issued official confirmation.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon told France-2 Television that if the resolution was approved France would support military action against Gadhafi within a matter of hours.

Immediately before the vote, France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe urged adoption of the resolution saying sanctions imposed by the Security Council on Feb. 26 aren't enough and "violence against the civilian population has been redoubled."

"We cannot let these warmongers ... do this," he said. "We have very little time left. It's a matter of days. It's perhaps a matter of hours. We should not arrive too late."

The resolution also calls for stronger enforcement of the arms embargo, adds names of individuals, companies and other entities to the list of those subject to travel bans and asset freezes, and requires all countries to ban Libyan flights from landing, taking off or overflying their country.

It also demands that Libya ensure the "rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian assistance" and asks U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to establish an eight-member panel of experts to assist the Security Council committee in monitoring sanctions.

Russia and China had expressed doubts about the United Nations and other outside powers using force against Gadhafi, a view backed by India, Brazil and Germany who also abstained.

Germany's U.N. Ambassador Peter Wittig expressed fear that using military force could lead to "the likelihood of large-scale loss of life."

Despite the lack of consensus, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said: "Today the Security Council has responded to the Libyan people's cry for help."

She said "Colonel Gadhafi and those who still stand by him continue to grossly and systematically abuse the most fundamental of the human rights of his people."



Gadhafi, in the Radiotelevisao Portuguesa interview, said that he rejected any U.N. threats of action.

"The U.N. Security Council has no mandate," Gadhafi said. "We don't acknowledge their resolutions."

He warned that any military action would be construed as "colonization without any justification" and would have "grave repercussions."

The Arab League has supported the call for a no-fly zone, and Gadhafi said that as a result "it's finished."

The United States joined the resolution's initial supporters — Britain, France and Lebanon — not only in pushing for a speedy vote but also in pressing for action beyond creation of a no-fly zone to protect civilians from air, land and sea attacks by Gadhafi's fighters.

This marked a dramatic about-face by the Obama administration which for weeks hesitated about supporting a no-fly zone, fearing that the United States could get sucked into another war in a Muslim nation.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in Tunisia on Thursday that a U.N. no-fly zone over Libya would require action to protect the planes and pilots, "including bombing targets like the Libyan defense systems." She said no ground intervention is being considered.

Michael Mann, a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, called the situation "very worrying" and said the EU was looking to the U.N. Security Council before making further decisions. "We have always said all along that we are planning for all options," he said.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, whose government had expressed misgivings about a no-fly zone, proposed that the council vote first on a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Libya. The council refused but added a paragraph in the resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire "and a complete end to violence and all attacks against, and abuses of, civilians."

France and Britain failed to win support for a no-fly zone during a two-day meeting of Group of Eight foreign ministers in Paris on Tuesday and the G-8's final communique did not mention a flight ban, leaving any action to the Security Council.

___

Associated Press Writers Anita Snow at the United Nations and Jamey Keaten in Paris contributed to this report.

Damon Wayans to star in CBS sports radio pilot

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Damon Wayans may be returning to series television. The comedian has finalized a deal to headline the CBS TV Studios multi-camera comedy pilot set at a sports radio station.

The pilot is written by Bill Martin and Mike Schiff ("Grounded for Life") and is inspired by acerbic ESPN personality Colin Cowherd. Wayans' character is named Nick Herd.

Andy Cadiff ("Hot in Cleveland," "Rules of Engagement," "My Wife and Kids") will direct the pilot.

Martin, Schiff and Cowherd will executive produce with Eric and Kim Tannenbaum ("Running Wilde," "Two and Half Men") whose Tannenbaum Co. is set up at CBS Studios with a three-year overall deal.

Danny Comden ("Dirt," "Urban Legend") has also joined the cast as the manipulative producer of Herd's show.

Wayans - who hails from the famous comedic family behind "In Living Color" - has built a career as an actor and comedian as well as a producer and director. His on-screen include ABC's "My Wife and Kids" and the Showtime sketch comedy series "The Underground." He also headlined a string of features including "Major Payne" and "The Last Boy Scout."

Helicopters dump water on nuclear plant in Japan

Tokyo (CNN) -- Helicopters dumped water Thursday on and near the Nos. 3 and 4 units at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in the latest attempt to halt the nuclear accident that appeared to be spinning out of control. The helicopters belong to the nation's self-defense forces, public broadcaster NHK reported.

Initially, just a few drops were carried out before the operation was suspended. An NHK commentator said about 100 would be needed for the operation to succeed.

During the afternoon, engineers were planning to begin the process of restoring power to the stricken nuclear complex, a government official said. The complex lost its power Friday, when a 9.0 earthquake followed by a tsunami hammered northeastern Japan.

"Today, we are trying to restore the power supply using the power lines from outside," said the official with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. "This is one of the high-priority issues that we have to address."

Once the power supply has been re-established, the cooling system will be operated using seawater, he said. But he warned that the process will not be immediate.

"It will take time to restore the function of the main part of the facilities, because the pumps were contaminated by seawater and must be repaired before reuse," he said, adding that temporary pumps would be used initially.

The move came a few hours after the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission testified that spent fuel rods in Unit 4 of Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant had been exposed, resulting in the emission of "extremely high" levels of radiation.

"What we believe at this time is that there has been a hydrogen explosion in this unit due to an uncovering of the fuel in the fuel pool," Gregory Jaczko told a House energy and commerce subcommittee hearing Wednesday. "We believe that secondary containment has been destroyed and there is no water in the spent fuel pool, and we believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures."

A Japanese government spokesman, Noriyuki Shikata, said he saw Jaczko's testimony, but could not confirm it. "I cannot comment on the basis of the testimony itself," he told CNN.

Asked about the report of a high level of radioactivity near the plants, he said, "We have not seen the level that is, for example, dangerous to human bodies beyond the very close vicinity of the reactors."

In addition, he said, "we have not seen a major breach of containment."

The water served to both cool the uranium fuel and shield it. But once the uranium fuel was no longer covered by water, the zirconium cladding that encases the fuel rods heated, generating hydrogen, said Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a former official with the Department of Energy.

That caught fire, resulting in a situation that is "very, very serious," he told CNN. He said the next step may involve nuclear plant workers taking heroic acts. Asked to be more specific, he said, "This is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives. ... It's very difficult for me to contemplate that but it's, it may have reached that point."

Photographs of the building released Wednesday by the power company showed a hole in a wall and deterioration of the roof.

A Japanese Self-Defense Force helicopter aborted its mission Wednesday to drop water over the reactor because of the high radiation levels in the area, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported Wednesday.

Officials have been working to resolve cooling problems at four of Fukushima Daiichi's six reactors in the wake of the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeast Japan Friday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said the temperature of water in spent fuel pools is typically kept below 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit). That requires a constant cooling source, which requires a constant power source, something not available at the plant in the aftermath of Friday's earthquake and tsunami.

"The concern about the spent fuel pools at Fukushima Daiichi is that sources of power to cool the pools may have been compromised," IAEA said in a statement. It listed the temperatures at the spent fuel pools Tuesday as 84.0 degrees C (183 F) at Unit 4; 60.4 degrees C (141 F) at Unit 5 and 58.5 degrees C (137 F) at Unit 6.

By Wednesday, it was reporting "no data" for Unit 4 and worrying trends for the other two: Unit 5 had risen to 62.7 degrees C (145 F) and Unit 6 had risen to 60.0 degrees C (140 F).

Three of the reactors were operating at the time of Friday's 9.0 earthquake and were shut down following their normal procedures, Jaczko said. All of them, he said, appeared to have suffered "some degree of core damage from insufficient cooling caused ultimately by the loss of off-site power and the inability of the on-site diesel generators to operate successfully following the tsunami."

Three reactors were being cooled with seawater and their primary containment vessels were described as "functional," he said.

But core cooling was "not stable" for unit No. 2, he said. Though the primary containment appeared to be functioning, "we believe that the spent fuel pool level is decreasing."

At unit No. 3, he said, the integrity of the spent fuel pool appeared to have been compromised and there may have been a reaction between the zirconium cladding and the water.

Jaczko's grim announcement confirmed fears that the nuclear crisis would worsen. They had already heightened earlier in the day, when officials observed white vapor rising from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant's reactor No. 3.

Tests on tap water in Fukushima city, 80 kilometers (50 miles) away, found radiation, though at levels not harmful to the human body, and later tests showed no radiation in the water, government officials said.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano said Wednesday he will travel to Japan "as soon as possible, hopefully (Thursday)" to get the latest on the situation and to see how the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency can best help Japanese authorities, he said. He will stay one night, he added.

In Washington, military officials said Wednesday they had deployed an atmospheric detection aircraft, the WC-135W Constant Phoenix, to assist in detecting radioactive materials in the atmosphere around Japan.

The plane, normally based at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, was moved Tuesday to Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska to prepare for its first sortie, the officials said.

The aircraft can "detect radioactive 'clouds' in real time," according to the Air Force.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, initially said a breach in the containment vessel -- the steel and concrete shell that insulates radioactive material inside the reactor -- may have been the cause of Wednesday's white vapor. But he said later it was unlikely that the vessel suffered severe damage, the Kyodo news agency reported.

Officials told workers at the plant to evacuate Wednesday after the vapor rose above the plant and radiation levels spiked. Radiation levels later fell, and authorities allowed the workers to return, the Tokyo Electric Power Company said.

The number of nuclear workers remaining on site was slashed Tuesday from 800 to 50 but had grown to 180 by Wednesday afternoon, the power company said.

About 200,000 people living within a 20-kilometer radius of the plant have been evacuated; those living 20 to 30 kilometers from the site have been told to remain inside. Authorities also have banned flights over the area.

But the Japanese precautions were not universally embraced. Britain's foreign ministry joined the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo late Wednesday in asking their respective citizens to evacuate or take shelter indoors if they live within 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the Fukushime Daiiachi plant, both nations said in separate statements.

"Their standards are different from ours based on how far you should evacuate," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday. He called the situation "very fluid."

That view was confirmed by NRC's Jaczko. "For a comparable situation in the United States, we would recommend an evacuation to a much larger radius than has currently been provided in Japan," he said.

The U.S. military also said it will not allow troops within 50 miles of the plant, Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said Wednesday.

U.S. President Barack Obama was briefed Wednesday by the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the "deteriorating situation" of the damaged nuclear reactors, Carney said.

The weather has emerged as a key concern, but on Wednesday afternoon, winds were blowing out to sea, CNN International Meteorologist Jennifer Delgado said.

As a result of the monitoring of about 150 people from around the Daiichi site, 23 have been decontaminated, IAEA said.

"Their situation is not great," said David Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University. "It's pretty clear that they will be getting very high doses of radiation. There's certainly the potential for lethal doses of radiation. They know it, and I think you have to call these people heroes."

A meltdown occurs when nuclear fuel rods cannot be cooled and the nuclear core melts. In the worst-case scenario, the fuel can spill out of the containment unit and spread radioactivity through the air and water. That, public health officials say, can cause both immediate and long-term health problems, including radiation poisoning and cancer.

CNN's Stan Grant, Steven Jiang, Barbara Starr, Sabriya Rice, Elise Labott and Richard Greene contributed to this report.

Economic hit from Japan quake seen up to $200 billion

(Reuters) - Japan's devastating earthquake and deepening nuclear crisis could result in losses of up to $200 billion for the world's third largest economy but the global impact remains hard to gauge five days after a massive tsunami battered the northeast coast.

As Japanese officials scrambled to avert a catastrophic meltdown at a nuclear plant 240 km (150 miles) north of the capital Tokyo, economists took stock of the damage to buildings, production and consumer activity.

The disaster is expected to hit Japanese output sharply over the coming months, but economists warned it could result in a deeper slowdown if power shortages prove significant and prolonged, delaying or even scotching the "v-shaped" recovery that followed the 1995 Kobe earthquake.

Most believe the direct economic hit will total between 10-16 trillion yen ($125-$200 billion), resulting in a contraction in second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) but a sharp rebound in the latter half of 2011 as reconstruction investment boosts growth.

"The economic cost of the disaster will be large," economists at JP Morgan said. "There has been substantial loss to economic resources, and economic activity will be impeded by infrastructure damages (like power outages) in the weeks or months ahead."

Japanese stocks suffered their worst two-day rout since the 1987 crash on Monday and Tuesday, losing a whopping $626 billion in value, before rebounding 5.7 percent on Wednesday as hedge funds rushed to cover short positions.

But traders remained skittish, swayed by each new development at the stricken Fukushima power plant and alert to signs Japanese companies and insurers could sell sizeable foreign assets and repatriate funds to cover the costs of the nuclear crisis, quake and tsunami.

High-yield bonds and U.S. Treasuries top the list of vulnerable assets should the triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear breakdown prompt Japanese investors to bring overseas funds back home, analysts say.

YEN RISK

Although the damage to infrastructure has been severe, some of the biggest risks to the economy may come from indirect market consequences of the disaster, such as a rise in the Japanese yen.

The yen surged to an all-time high against the dollar after the Kobe earthquake in 1995 as Japanese firms pulled funds home. The dollar has fallen 3 percent against the yen since the disaster and is now close to the low hit after Kobe.

The direction of the yen could have a big impact on Japanese carmakers like Toyota Motor Co, Nissan Motor and Honda Motor, which build between 22 and 38 percent of their cars at home.

HSBC Chief Economist Stephen King said it was still too early to put a figure on the economic costs as the scale of the disaster was not yet clear.

The area of Japan affected by the tsunami produces around 4.1 percent of the country's GDP, suggesting first-round economic effects could be limited, he said. But with the fate of the Fukushima nuclear reactors still unclear, Japan may not have felt the full force of the disaster yet.

"At this stage, it's too early to come up with meaningful estimates of the overall impact of the terrible events in Japan," King wrote in a research note.



"Knee-jerk economic and financial reactions to shocks and disasters often fall wide of the mark," he noted, pointing to erroneous predictions of a U.S. recession following the September 11, 2001 attacks and of a major hit from the 2004 Asian tsunami.

The disaster is already disrupting the global manufacturing chain, hitting technology companies particularly hard as Japan accounts for one-fifth of the world's semiconductor output.

However, reflecting the high degree of uncertainty about the global economic impact of the disaster, the U.S. Federal Reserve made no mention of Japan in a statement issued after its policy meeting on Tuesday.

The European Central Bank, which warned earlier this month that it could hike rates in April, also appears to be in wait-and-see mode even as money markets scale back their expectations for monetary tightening this year.

Fitch Ratings said it did not currently view the economic impact as sufficiently severe to warrant negative rating action, pointing to Japan's well-diversified economy and sovereign financing flexibility.

Japan's public debt is twice the size of its $5.3 trillion economy, the highest ratio of any large developed country in the world. But unlike other high debt countries like Greece, only five percent of Japan's debt is held by foreign investors so the risks of a funding crisis are limited.

FRANCE CALLS FOR G7 MEETING

Still, in a sign European leaders may be nervous about their debt crisis spreading to Japan following the disaster, France said it had called a meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bankers to respond to the crisis, mentioning possible purchases of Japanese debt.

Ratings agency Moody's warned earlier this week that the quake, tsunami and resulting nuclear crisis increased the chance of investors losing confidence in Japan's finances and eventually demanding higher rates on government bonds.

For now the government is using 200 billion yen in emergency reserves to pay for anti-crisis efforts. The rapidly evolving disaster has prevented government officials from working on an emergency budget which could be in the range of 5-10 trillion yen.

Some ruling party lawmakers have proposed a special tax to pay for disaster relief, but Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda has told allies he is not considering tax increases.

In a bid to reassure investors that fiscal conditions will not spin out of control, Japan has capped new bond sales at 44 trillion yen in recent years, but that ceiling is likely to be scrapped now.

"Basically, the government needs to scrap the 44 trillion yen cap," said Seiji Adachi, an economist at Deutsche Securities in Tokyo. "It needs to compile an emergency budget as soon as possible, at least in the next one to two months."

Huge fund injections from the Bank of Japan have kept borrowing costs low so far and there are no signs of strains in Japan's financial system.

Sources told Reuters that the central bank, which eased monetary policy on Monday by doubling funds available for asset purchases to 10 trillion yen, was likely to take further steps as soon as next month.

(Writing by Noah Barkin, editing by Mike Peacock)