NPR’s ‘Weekend Edition’, Feb. 15, 2014: The cleanup at the crippled nuclear reactor at Fukushima, Japan has been plagued by problems. Contaminated water has leaked into the ocean, radiation levels are higher than originally announced and the Japanese public is suspicious that [TEPCO] isn’t telling the whole story. >> Listen to the broadcast here
NPR, Feb. 15, 2014: Some critics say that TEPCO can’t be trusted and that the world’s largest nuclear accident is still waiting to happen at Fukushima, such as an accidental nuclear reaction […] TEPCO dismisses predictions like this as alarmist. Japanese themselves are highly divided on the issue […] shutting down the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will go on for a long time. TEPCO predicts it could last 30 or 40 years. Others say that estimate is blindly optimistic.
Asia-Pacific Journal, Mobilizing Nuclear Bias: The Fukushima Nuclear Crisis and the Politics of Uncertainty, Prof. Kyle Cleveland, Feb. 17, 2014: […] As we look to the early days of the crisis, it is tempting […] to conclude that after a somewhat hysterical first few weeks, the crisis abated, taking with it these unreasonable claims. However, over time critical media coverage has led to a gradual amplification of risk about nuclear danger that has given credence to claims previously taken as an over-reaction and panic. […] social activism is on the rise, bringing previously disengaged citizens into political movements that were previously the domain of activists, who are now being vindicated by recent events.
Press Conference at Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, Feb. 21, 2014 — Kenichi Hasegawa, farmer evacuated from Iitate village in Fukushima Prefecture (at 10:15 in): The biggest problem in Japan now is the deliberate cover-up over the levels of radiation that people have been exposed to and the health problems that they have. There is a continual purposeful concealment of facts that the media in Japan will not properly report. So what we need is for foreign countries to put pressure on Japan and hopefully bring the truth to light.
How can anyone clean up while the storm is still raging? It is like putting the furniture back inside a burning house. The whole story is a fraud, there has been no cleanup, the radioactive materials are so powerful, a human can stand it for 7-10 minutes before dying…..a robot might last up to 2 hours before melting. They are not doing a damn thing because they don’t know how to stop it.
Humans are the only species stupid enough to invent things they cannot control. Now, it is too late, and regardless of the happy horseshit fed people through mendacious US media, the truth will win out…..it always does.
I have heard excuses over the last three years this has continued….people will panic……Japan is working on the problem…….lie after lie after bigger lies.
Russia offered to help them after the 2011 event and the Japanese turned them down because Russia might tell the truth. Last year, they finally came to an agreement with the US because the US will lie with them. The Japs said no to help from many foreign nations, didn’t want to lose face. The death of their population doesn’t disturb them, just their false pride.
I have grown to despise the Japanese over the last three years. Their depraved indifference to the lives and future of humanity ought to result in charges of genocide before the world court. If I were a world leader, it would already be fully in motion.
Damage Control, even by proven inept and corrupt deviants like TEPCO is their way of trying to cling on to some viability.
Culturally, failure is not an option, as was shown so often to we mere western humans during WWll.
They have failed, but they have no clue how to handle it. Assistance was available but never requested.
As a result, our grandkids may suffer.
Like my former employee once said when he recollected his experience pulling dead, bayonetted target practice British Squaddies off lamp-posts in Singapore….the only good Jap is a dead one!
In response to Squodgy: You are correct, it is nothing but cheap damage control. Russia offered to help, but they turned them down.
You say our grandchildren will suffer. It is going to be much swifter than that, all of us will suffer. Like 98% of all species that have lived on this planet, we will be rendered extinct….especially those of us on the west coast of Canada, North America, Mexico, Central America…..
My uncle served in the Pacific in WW2 in some of the most horrible battles; it was years before he could talk about it. 30 years later, he went insane with post traumatic stress syndrome, a gentle and kind man became a terror to his family…..my equally gentle aunt had to divorce him. It was the first divorce in my family.
I think the term “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” predates the one about the Japanese….but I get your point. Any nation that allows the building of SIX nuclear reactors on top of a earthquake prone area is greedy and lack foresight. When greed exceeds the general good, something is wrong. I am very angry with Japan, too.
Chernobyl was built in the rural areas far away from people and was not earthquake prone….the Russians poured concrete over it, and buried the mess within a month of the disaster.