Greenpeace monitoring effort | Lenz Blog
Greenpeace wants schools in Fukushima closed because of radiation. They had a radiation measuring team doing some monitoring in schools there, finding levels of radiation exceeding the “international 1 mSv/y maximum allowed” in many places. While I don’t agree with them regarding the safety levels, I think it is a good thing they are doing [...]
Japan faces more confusion amid leadership vote – Yahoo! News
Japan — which is set to see its sixth prime minister in five years — has fumbled recently to find leadership to tackle formidable challenges, including recovery from a massive earthquake and tsunami in March and the battle to bring a nuclear power plant sent into meltdown by the disasters under control. Even before the [...]
It wasn’t our fault! It wasn’t our fault!!! – Japan utility knew of tsunami threat: government – Yahoo! News
So the blame shifting continues. Does anyone really think this exculpates the regulatory agency? “OK, here’s the deal: you tell us what safety procedures you think you ought to implement, and we’ll mull them over and tell you to implement them. Or maybe we’ll just skip the mulling. Save time. I hate reading, anyway.” (“Despite [...]
Tepco now says reactor seawater injection wasn’t halted – Japan Times
Discussing this with my wife this morning, she said probably the man in charge of Fukushima, the man on the ground there, Yoshida, probably decided to keep pouring the water into the reactors, whatever the government or anyone else was saying, on his own initiative, and this shameful fact was then hushed up. For obvious [...]
Sources: Kan halted cooling day after quake | The Japan Times Online
Why should a PM halt cooling? What does he know about nuclear engineering? You have to read down into the article to see that it was actually the NSC that advised Kan on this matter. But wait a minute! The reason they advised this was their concern about “recriticality” being caused by seawater (I recall [...]
Absent TEPCO execs slowed crucial action : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)
(Update: First installment is here. I’m still not sure what to make of this article, or the first installment. The headline seems to be a direct and unequivocal criticism of TEPCO management, yet the details revealed in the article do not add up to clear guilt at all. If anything, the slow response was almost [...]
Kan’s thank-you message placed in world’s major papers : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)
“Kizuna” is becoming a buzzword. I don’t like buzzwords. NEW YORK–The Japanese government placed an ad bearing a thank-you message from Prime Minister Naoto Kan in some of the world’s major newspapers on Monday, a month after the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake. Part of the message reads, “At that desperate time people from around [...]
Rural sports complex turns into base camp for nuclear workers | The Japan Times Online
The Japan Times provides more details of the working conditions at Fukushima, and reports on Kan’s visit there. Update:I don’t think this is the complete truth, but this article and others on the same subject seem to indicate that the government and TEPCo are aware of people’s concern and anxiety over a) the workers on [...]
The Struggle for a New Japan | The Diplomat
Another article cautiously praising the Japanese government’s response to the recent disaster (although after quickly glancing through the contents, it looks to be little more than a re-hash of what Karel von Wolferen wrote the other day): There are three things that stand out about the current Japanese response that distinguish it sharply from the [...]
