DOC《福岛第一核电站发生爆炸 各方赶赴日本救援》

福岛第一核电站发生爆炸 各方赶赴日本救援 In the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in that country, one of the many major concerns is problems at a nuclear power plant.

In yesterday's show, we talked about how these plants work. There have been explosions inside some of them, but experts think those are probably being caused by a build-up of hydrogen. Another problem, though: The cooling system for one of the nuclear reactors went down. No cooling system means the water that covers up the nuclear fuel rods started to burn off;

that left the rods exposed. If those things are exposed for too long, the heat and steam that they let off could melt the reactor's core. And that could be very bad news indeed. Officials are doing everything they can to keep this situation under control. Meanwhile, rescue crews are spread out all over northern Japan trying to reach survivors of the quake and tsunami. But rescuers are facing obstacles as well. Obviously, they have to work around all the rubble and the flooding you see here. But they're also dealing with aftershocks. And the weather is supposed to get worse, which could in itself cause problems. There are scenes of incredible rescues taking place, like this one. A sixty-year-old man was swept out to sea, along with his house. He managed to hold on to part of his roof, and a Japanese naval ship found him floating nine miles off the coast. We also talked yesterday about the help coming in from around the world. At least

70 countries have offered help to Japan, and the aid they want to send in is very unique. We have some examples of it for you right now. Rescue dogs. They're heading in from South Korea, Britain, Germany. These are specially trained animals that can tell the difference between survivors and dead bodies. So hopefully, they'll be able to help in the rescue efforts.