More “great” news from Japan’s nuclear power disaster.

What is it about our species that sees the earth and its oceans not as our shared home to be cherished and guarded as though our existence depended on it, but as our unlimited garbage dump? We should be ashamed. Our governments should be ashamed. Our corporations and their dishonest executives should be ashamed. All of us.

Saturday’s news focused on TEPCO finding contaminated water leaking into the ocean from a staging “pit” near Unit 2. The concrete pit has a large crack in it. Pumping out of contaminated flooded areas continue. Also, I provide comments on the AREVA Presentation of the accident sequence.

Japanese officials on Thursday confronted significantly increased radiation readings, well above safe levels on land and sea. The increases occurred even as they continued efforts to inject fresh water in Units 1-3 reactors and spent fuel storage ponds and pumped contaminated water out of turbine building basements and nearby trenches.

Sandbags. That’s right, we’re literally down to sandbags to keep a trench filled with highly radiative water from spilling its content into the sea.

Earlier hopes that restoring offsite power to the control rooms at Units 1-2 and 3-4 would allow quick reactivation of normal cooling systems were dashed with discovery, anticipated in our coverage, that critical pumps, valves and pressure censors might be damaged and need repair or replacement. In the meantime, radiation fears are spreading to tap water.

Obama spoke for less than five minutes; took no questions.

Yesterday the spent fuel rod pool at Fukushima Daiichi reactor 4 caught fire. About that time instruments at the plant showed an exponential increase in radiation levels. After the fire was quenched, radiation levels fell. In the hour before I sat down to write this, there was an explosion at the same spent fuel rod pool. As I write, another fire is burning there. NHK reports the radiation level – 300 to 400 milliSieverts – is so high that firefighters cannot approach the area.

Early Wednesday morning, March 16, in Japan.

Japanese authorities are reporting a new fire and explosion coming from the area of the spent fuel pond of Unit 4 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.

That’s the same site at which fires were reported on Tuesday and an explosion that released very high levels of radiation. Wednesday’s blast and fire also resulted in increased radiation readings at the site, and, according to one other report, at least two workers are missing.

Breaking: There has been another explosion at Unit 4. More as we get details.

A Japanese senior official gave a press conference at 11:00 a.m. (Tokyo) Tuesday and officials answered questions about the situation at the Fukushima Nuclear Station.