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© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.Gov't under fire for disaster response; TEPCO chief heckled in Diet
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BurakuminDes
Oh, the poor dear may have to go back to hospital again with "stress-related illness". We're crying for you, old Masataka, and so are all of the Fukushima evacuees like Otsuka-san and Matsueda-san.
herefornow
Probably true. But the same can be said of at least the last 5 PM's. This comedy of errors and lack of crisis management skills is as much an indictment of the overall Japanese system of selecting political and corporate leaders as it is of just Kan and Shimizu. Toyota's response to their recall crisis last year was just as amateurish.
smithinjapan
I agree that removing Kan at the present time would be far from helpful. The man should definitely resign, but not until things are better under control; having an election for party leader and PM at the moment would accomplish nothing amidst the current chaos.
As for Shimizu... he SHOULD feel ill at ease. Look at what all his corner-cutting has gotten the nation.
smartacus
No matter what anyone thinks about TEPCO's president, it is childish for political leaders (supposedly mature adults) to heckle and taunt the man. What do they hope to gain? It's not as if they could do a better job.
Personally, I think Shimizu is in a very difficult position. There is not much he can do personally; he is relying heavily on his team of nuclear engineers and physicists, plus the foreign specialists who are at the scene.
An inquiry into whether or not he and other TEPCO execs were negligent in the past should be left for another time, after the crisis has been brought under control.
IvanCoughalot
I do hope he doesn't come down with another dose of dizziness. That is such a terrible ailment it causes you to disappear from your well-paid post at the time of your company's biggest-ever crisis.
I hope my boss is equally understanding if I ever come down with dizziness.
noriyosan73
Heckled? This guy needs to bow very deeply and fade away just as the BP loser did. There are places in the world where he can collect his severance pay and retirement without taxes. Follow the money.
wanderlust
The plan seems to involve a lot of concrete, and even high portion of "hope it works..."
apecNetworks
I don't want to brag, but I called it. I knew that TEPCO would bring under control the reactors, after power was restored to the Control Rooms, and reasonable control was still operational. He comes from the "old school - Japan, Inc. If he did his job correctly before the disaster, his personnel he worked w/ would "get the job done", even if he is not able. After TEPCO went into the Control Rooms, the critical situation systematically was downgraded hour by hour. The present non-critical problems can be attributed to TEPCO’s president, Masataka Shimizu. His team is getting the job done - bravo.
herefornow
apec -- huh? Are you reading the same news stories as the rest of us? TEPCO says it will be months before the situation is stablized and no more radiation is leaking. Calling the current problems "non-critical" is a pipe dream.
apecNetworks
The situation is horrible, but the out of control reactors are being cooled for shutdown. A complete meltdown is very unlikely now.
Piglet
@apecNetworks
The recent corruption and mismanagement cases at TEPCO should definitely bring criminal charges against its management team. Therefore, all we can ask for is an independent criminal investigation for fraud, non respect of the nuclear safety rules and the Japan Labor Standards Law, signature of falsified documents, perjury.
apecNetworks
To Piglet,
Who knows what will happen legally, but if you ask around, very few coastal reactors in the world could survive after a 9.0 quake, significant tsunami. This crisis is "unprecedented", and the Japanese legal system will probably take that into consideration.
apecNetworks
Addendum:
I should add that a 9.0 Mag earthquake is possibly 100TIMES more powerful than a 7.0 Mag earthquake. A 9.0 Mag earthquake is at least several times stronger than a 8.0 Mag earthquake. Not just a notch stronger.
Piglet
@apecNetworks
Let me remember you a few things:
They covered-up some malfunctioning parts and filled falsified reports (on this fact alone, criminal charges can be brought)
They refused to take into account some of the reports and recommendations to reevaluate the risks
They did not comply with the Labour Standards Law (hired minors, did not respect the hiring rules, ....)
There might be some links for organized crime in some cases (some former employees were "convinced" to keep quiet).
They did not respect many of the Nuclear Safety rulesThe whole idea of granting regional monopoly to a private company with ties to the government (many of their management team are former top officials or linked with the Nuclear Safety agency, which is supposed to regulate them) is absurd. The government should let TEPCO get bankrupt under the weight of the money they'll have to pay, then allow its remains to be sold to various competitors, local and foreign.
AdamB
apecNetworks,
Why was this unprecedented? Earthquakes happen here regularily, tsunamis can be caused by earthquakes. This tsunami isnt even the largest recorded. Yes very few coastal reactors around the world could survive a 9.0 quake and tsunami. Why then in this country of all of them would they build reactors on the coast then?
By all accounts the reactors performed quite well during the quake which the designers deserve a massive pat on the back for. It was the following tsunami that caused the main problems correct?
apecNetworks
I think someone from the Meteorological Center should go to the Diet and demonstrate the strength of the earthquake. Bring in a cardtable, and let someone hit it as hard as possible w/ a hammer - this would represent a 7.0 Mag earthquake. Next, get a 20 pound sledgehammer, and slam that same table w/ it. The difference is the difference between the 2 earthquakes.
apecNetworks
"AdamB at 02:01 PM JST - 18th April
apecNetworks,
Why was this unprecedented?"
What earthquake/tsunami damaged reactor would be the precedent?
AdamB
apecNetworks,
Gotcha, sorry l miss read what you said, l took your statement as meaning the earthquake and tsunami of that proportions.
hokkaidoguy
I've got to wonder what kind of leadership the opposition would have offered as an alternative.
Considering the LDP were the ones who drafted all the legislation concerning nuclear power, and were the ones who wrote off decades of TEPCO violations after they came to light in 2002, perhaps the leadership Kan needs to show right now is a public airing of the LDP-TEPCO relationship, kickbacks and all.
herefornow
apec -- could you remove the rose-colored glasses TEPCO gave you for just a minute? The fact that large radiation emissions are still a distinct possibility, and the leakage to the ocean is continuing, says this thing is far from a certain outcome. Because, as you know, the cooling method currently being employed -- dumping water -- is causing its own problems. Congratulate TEPCO when and if the actual cooling systems are restored.
apecNetworks
herefornow at 02:42 PM JST - 18th April
the out of control reactors are being cooled for shutdown. A complete meltdown is very unlikely now.apec -- could you remove the rose-colored glasses TEPCO gave you for just a minute? The fact that large radiation emissions are still a distinct possibility, and the leakage to the ocean is continuing, says this thing is far from a certain outcome. Because, as you know, the cooling method currently being employed -- dumping water -- is causing its own problems. Congratulate TEPCO when and if the actual cooling systems are restored."
I never said it was a done deal, but TEPCO is developing the situation as I guessed - no disappointments. The personnel in the Control Rooms are working around the clock, w/ the problems systematically downgraded as time passes. In these kinds of crises, set back do happen, but the overall progression graph has the indicator heading down, w/ a cold shutdown as an anticipated endpoint. As far as the radiation in the water, I have already formulated the solution here on JT, and TEPCO should be doing so in the near future. Soil contamination and the evacuees are problems yet to be resolved.
All in all, the situation is improving.
flyingfish
apec is right tepco have done a fine job. dont lets worry about the minor fact that thousands of people had to be evacuated and are now living in evacuation shelters.
2020hindsight
piglet
Yes, but this is old news and has nothing to do with the current crisis.
Klein2
I am appalled. "Dissatisfaction with TEPCO's plan"? Oh, well let's just do it twice as fast then!
These critics must be idiots. It takes TIME for those plants to cool down. You can't start one step until you finish another. The plan is realistic and pragmatic. What is going on with people?
And really, if you were TEPCO, don't you think you would be the LAST people on earth to want to drag this out?
TEPCO saved my life. And about 50 million other people. Let the person who predicted the tsunami cast the first stone!
SushiSake3
Just one thought - TEPCO has kept residents in Tokyo and other prefectures supplied with relatively cheap electricity from its nuclear reactors for 4 decades.
With zero major accidents or grounds for serious complaints from customers.
Something to keep in mind before the verbal lashing of TEPCO resumes....
GJDailleult
OK, first off the reactors did not survive a magnitude 9.0 earthquake. They survived the intensity of the earthquake when it hit Fukushima, it is 9.0 only at the epicenter. I have read somewhere that the intensity was within what the reactors had been designed for, but I would have to double check that before saying it was fact. As for an unprecedented once in a 1,000 year event, that line seems to have come straight from TEPCO itself. But for the umpteenth time, a magnitude 9.0 quake is the once in 1000 year event, a tsunami capable of wiping out the electrical equipment as things were set up was not and is much more common.
As for whether Shimizu should be arrested for criminal negligence, maybe his health problems and "ill-at-easeness" are due to him knowing he will be. Government is between a rock and a hard place here. Make this a criminal case and that would likely increase TEPCO's liabilities even more, and the government will be on the hook. But arrest him and make this all about the tsunami, and they can take off some of the heat about nuclear energy (not saying there should not be heat put on about nuclear, just that the electricity situation is obviously a big economic problem for the government, especially if plants were to get shut down over safety). One thing though, there was long, strange gap of close to two weeks when there was nothing said in the media about the role of the tsunami in the crisis. New York Times even did a whole story "TEPCO ignored risks" that never mentioned the word tsunami once, then a few days later had a very long and detailed article about the lack of tsunami preparation. Just a possibility, but maybe the media was asked to hold off while an investigation was conducted. We can only hope!
Bogart
Klein2, what you and apec are conveniently overlooking is that the whole nuclear crisis was avoidable. TEPCO chose to save money rather than plan for the worst case scenario. There are numerous articles, including on JT, explaining this. 'TEPCO saved my life' has to be the funniest statement I have read for a long time, thanks for the laugh.
krishtx
Top bureaucrats and TEPCO should be replaced to get this better. I was really surprised to know TEPCO president was hiding in Osaka during this crisis.
apecNetworks
I find it amazing that I can actually "see" solutions sooooooo easily because I researched coastal developments off Japan. A person w/ little or no background in this crisis would be stymied. Perspective on the crisis is very much dependent on prior knowledge/experience of the various aspects of the crisis. The present crisis is only a subset of what I studied.
GJDailleult
Who are you suggesting they cast the stones at? There appear to be a lot of stones to be thrown, you are going to get somebody killed!
Not looking so cheap anymore.
BurakuminDes
C'mon Klein - I'v been reading most of your posts with interest, but now I think you are just having a laugh, mate! Do you mean this or are you just winding us up?
herefornow
Klein2 -- guess we are looking at two sides of the same coin. I think TEPCO willingly risked the lives of 50 million people with years of colluding with the LDP-led government and the ministries to under-state the tsunami risk at Fukushima and cut costs. (But don't believe me, check the NY Times articles from around March 25th to see a comprehensive/objective analysis.) They also deliberately kept 50 million folks here, as well as foriegn governments around the world, deliberately in the dark (bad pun) about the extent of the crisis. But if that is the best you expect from corporations, then go ahead and praise them if you must.
YongYang
These grab the moment grand standers from the LDP are a disgrace, what would they be doing other than wondering how to put the blame elsewhere? WHo sanctioned the building of the plants where they are why undoubtably making cash? The only thing they are worried about is the share value of their stock in REPCO. How does shouting down the PM help the situation? Where his ideas and plan? Exactly. Come on PM Kan, tell them how it is. Ask them who built 'what' and 'where', who allowed cost cutting and the cosy cuddle up between the governments and 'politicians'. Get back to your exposing the truth ways, let them have it!
YongYang
@Klein, that is some claim that I for one feel is not really based in anything but sound bite. Bite being the word of note and we aren't going to.
Richard_III
Kan doesn't seem that bad, but where it states above that he says: “I am sincerely apologizing for what has happened", seems very weak.
I really don't know why the DPJ don't go to town on tearing the legacy of the LDP to shreds and highlighting just how many mistakes they made at every possible opportunity; or highlight their utter childishness.
This would certainly be the case in the UK. Such weak, chinless apologies really do the man no favours. Instead, he should be trying to kick these little LDP lawmakers in the balls, rather than this weak submissiveness all the time.
smithinjapan
SushiSake3: "With zero major accidents or grounds for serious complaints from customers."
Are you serious? TEPCO has had a series of accidents, more than one of which they tried to cover up. Do you not recall what happened in Niigata? They falsified data, tried to cover up the fact that radioactive materials both leaked into the ocean and the atmosphere, and tried to stop an IAEA inspection of the plant, with the TEPCO president saying fears of leaks were unfounded. It goes way beyond that, of course, but I just wanted to point out to you that 'zero major accidents' is not correct.
YongYang
@AdamB: No, what caused the main problem is the arrogance of those who willfully ignored advice and evidence concerning the siting and protection measure of the six reactors and their storage pools. Therein lies the thread, the cord which, when pulled up from the sand, tugs at the fault of 'who, what and why'.
Disillusioned
Wrong! They did survive the quake. It was the tsunami that wiped out the electrical system causing the cooling system to fail that has caused this crisis.
jeffydiver
This is amazing: a resignation request for the Prime Minister ? What does he have to do with Nuclear ? This is a world problem, not just in Japan, but the whole wide world ! "Knock it off !" It's better to think together then to think apart ! I have all kinds of hindsight physics questions on those American nuclear reactors, but that's hind-sight....we gotta get to work with the Prime Minister and get the plant shut down ! There's too much clean-up work to do to even think of resignations...."that's just a form of retirement anyway !"
YongYang
@Diillu: No, what caused the crisis is the arrogance of those who willfully ignored advice and evidence concerning the siting and protection measure of the six reactors and their storage pools. Therein lies the thread, the cord which, when pulled up from the sand, tugs at the fault of 'who, what and why'. How can nature be 'blamed', that's ridiculous.
YongYang
Watch 'Nuclear Ginza', tell me TEPCO cares. They don't. They are a business. Bottom line? Money. As any industry.
ACrowe
As if the LDP could have done a better job.
Most of the problems facing this country today could have been addressed by the government over ten years ago if the Liberal Dems, who know very little about liberalism and democracy, had shown true leadership. Instead they let them fester and fester. Shame on the bastards for using this dire moment in Japanese history to try to gain some political points!
yasukuni
People just seem to love bashing other people. Nobody could be PM now and have everyone happy. That's the nature of disasters.
westerner
I havent read all the comments and I'm not totally opposed to nuke power but... all those years ago Tepco proposed to the Jpns gov't to build a nuke plant in an earthquake zone, on a coastal location prone to tsunami damage, with a sole back-up diesel power supply at-or-below sea level within the grounds of the power station. And the Jpns gov't approved it. That diesel generator was "Plan B" but surely Tepco and the gov't would have considered a "Plan C" to have a further diesel generator several kms inland (or the Plan B generator located elsewhere). That would be a tiny % of the overall project cost to avoid a massive stuff-up that has now happened. I am sure all senior officials on both sides were aware of this but didn't want to upset the applecart. Yes, Tepco and the gov't are doiong the best they can - but its too late.
kchoze
westerner, I completely agree. The reaction to the crisis in itself is, though not perfect, at least decent, and we can honor the men who are putting their lives on the line to prevent a disaster from getting worse.
However, this disaster was preventable. But either by naive negligence or by negligence in the name of profits, this plant wasn't built ready to face earthquakes and tsunamis that are relatively frequent in the area. This is what caused all the problems. Had the diesel power supply been protected from tsunamis, it is likely that cooling wouldn't have been lost for long and what has happened could have been prevented: the hydrogen explosions, the release of radioactive gases, the spill of radioactive water, etc...
The worst thing is that TEPCO had a warning sign in the 2007 Chūetsu earthquake, which forced the shutdown for 21 months of their largest nuclear power station, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant. The IAEA then inspected the building and blamed TEPCO for insufficient earthquake preparations in the building and for a design earthquake that was much too small given the risks. But TEPCO didn't check its other plants enough after that warning sign.
TEPCO has an history of almost criminal negligence for safety and deliberate lying about safety inspections, something has to be done to rid the company of that rotten corporate culture.
YongYang
Watch 'Nuclear Ginza', then tell us TEPCO cares. They don't. They are a business. Bottom line? Money. As any industry.
Seawolf
I can believe when some people on JT "downplay" the whole nuclear accident, but I can't believe that after all that has been said there are still people who try to defend TEPCO or talking positive about them:reg nuclear plants, Onagawa survived the earthquake and tsunami despite the fact that it is north of Fukushima and thus closer to the epicenter. The simple reason: their backup generator is on 15m high ground, tsunami didn't reach them. TEPCO played the numbers-game, saving costs for upgrading, while hoping that a big tsunami wouldn't come before the old generation of nuclear plants are decomissioned - they lost, and the people in the surrounding area have to pay the price.
GW
While I absolutely detest the LDP & its evil ways for so many decades & all the businesses they have corrupted, which allowed themselves to be corrupted..............these are some of the things i really HATE about Japan & now the earthquake/tsunami has brought us all to where we are today & we have the LDP heckling a TEPCO old fart, WTF!
Yongyang if yr around this is the kind of stuff that needs to change!
Back to this thread, even with all the corruption, back handers, $$$$$$$ wasted & pilfered by LDP/govt/TEPCO, lets try hard as it is no doubt, but lets pretend NONE of that happened,the nukes were better built, better safety measures, even then these nukes may well be in trouble today from what happened on 3/11.
So all I want first is to fix whats broke now, I realize it will be months if we are lucky to get under control & possible years before it winds down.
THEN I want Tepco mgmt & a whole lot of LDP heads on a whole lotta silver platters!! The incest of govt & bizness has to be reigned in. This is Japans chance, it either fixes of lot of what is severly wrong ot it doesnt, if the latter the rot will only quicken. The Japanese deserve & dont derserve this but if they dont fix it this time, they will continue to reap what they have sewn for decades.
Man I hate writing this but this is how i see this &^%$!
haran3375
What is the way to clear up a nuclear accident?There is no quick way. The general public and most likely the general politician really have no idea what is involved in this.The delivery of American robots and in the days to come, UK robots will show,Japan is under prepared for this incident. 9 months won't see the end of this as this is a unique event never before encountered.
britling
Let's hear firm, detailed proposals from the LDP for dealing with this mess. They've already refused to work with the government during this crisis more than once, and yet now they're complaining that the government is incompetent. So why not step up? Tanigaki must be secretly breathing a sigh of relief that this didn't happen on his watch.
oberst
Not out of the woods yet.............that roadmap to recovery may take a bit longer.
From Associated Press...........
On Sunday, a plant worker opened an outer door to one of the buildings and two Packbots, which resemble drafting lamps on tank-like treads, entered. After the worker closed the door, one robot opened an inner door and both rolled inside to take readings for temperature, pressure and radioactivity. They later entered a second building.
The robots reported radioactivity readings of up to 49 millisieverts per hour inside Unit 1 and up to 57 inside Unit 3, levels too high for workers to realistically enter.
"It's a harsh environment for humans to work inside," said Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
bdiego
“You should be bowing your head in apology. You clearly have no leadership at all,” Masashi Waki, a lawmaker from the opposition Liberal Democratic Party..
Shouldn't they be telling that to everyone in the Diet? I mean really, the pot calling the kettle black here
goingtoshopping
According to other news sources, the situation is far dicier than either TEPCO or the domestic media are reporting (or not reporting.) People who live here and get all their 'information' only from sources like JT or NHK are seriously under-informed in my opinion.
For example, the NYTs has interactive maps that show people living as far away as Fukushima City (more than 30Km away from the government's own 30Km evacuation zone) receiving radiation equivalent to a chest X-ray every THREE DAYS! And some cities just beyond the border of the gov's 30Km evacuation zone will see the maximum annual limit for radioactive exposure the US allows for its nuclear workers EVERY THREE MONTHS at present levels of emission!
I mention US nuclear workers, since their maximum limit of exposure used to be only a third as much allowed their Japanese counterparts before the disaster (the limits have since been more than doubled by the Japanese government to 250 msv. annually vs. 50msv for the US.)
Meanwhile, inside Japan, Kyodo is reporting that even though TEPCO has recorded more than 2000 radiation dispersal estimates since the disaster (on the public's yen), only TWO have yet been made public. Why?
As for TEPCO and the business side of things, I'm surprised not to see here a report going around in the US (NYTs) that says someone in Hong Kong bought more than $600 million in TEPCO shares a few weeks ago (when investors panicked and the stock price plunged to a fraction of the company's previous value.) By doing this, the investors circumvented domestic Japanese law that requires purchasers of more than 5% of a public utility to disclose who they are: as it stands, no one knows yet...
As for the LDP and their anemic, opportunistic leader Tanigaki (who for me puts the value of a Tokyo University education into perspective): shame on all of them for using a national catastrophe to score cheap political points! Although I have to say it's just more of the same from the usual dandruff-shouldered dinosaurs over in Kasumigaseki!
People of Japan: now is absolutely the right time to Question Authority! Demand answers and get angry, already!
herefornow
goingtoshopping -- Great post. I have been saying basically the same thing for weeks. But, simply because Fukushima has not blown up/melted down, many folks here assume everything is OK, and TEPCO has control of the situation and is fully disclosing all information. Which is utter nonsense. And, as you state, the NY Times has been comsistently excellent in reporting objectively on this.
GJDailleult
disillusioned, you missed the meaning there. They survived a quake that at that location was much less than magnitude 9 in intensity. Claiming they survived a 9.0 quake is just TEPCO spin doctoring. But they did survive the quake and then the tsunami knocked out the power, as you said.
apecNetworks
I can't see how one can separate the quake from the Tsunami. It is b/c the quake was 9.0 Mag that caused the severity of the Tsunami, which was strong enough to reach and inundate the reactors. However, the actual Mag hitting the reactors were under 9.0 Mag. Devil is in the details.
bcbrownboy
And for those who say it's under control, here is today's Japan Times headline: Success no given in Tepco road map
LFRAgain
Yes, because changing the entire government from the top down right smack in the middle of the worst crisis to hit Japan since WWII is the smart thing to do.
Or perhaps not...
The abject political childishness of this country never ceases to amaze me.