Edano says he didn't deliberately mislead public about extent of nuclear crisis

How about if you don't know, you don't make it seem like things are all okay and take precautions just in case things aren't okay? I mean, really, that is common sense, right? Never mind the fact that those in Tokyo were getting ready to evacuate their family... How much faith did THEY have in the government and being told there was "no immediate risk"?

I should stop, I may get told I'm "fear mongering"...

YEAH RIGHT!!!!

Sure he didnt. I believe him.... NOT!!!!

I never did, do or will trust the government.

“I’m sorry for our misjudgment,” he said

Semantics. They didn't "deliberately mislead", but now admit they did mislead. Due to "misjudgement". Makes me proud that I was one of the "flyjin" who used their own judgement on whether it was safe or not to stay in the days after the quake. And, more importantly, glad I am no longer putting my future in the hands of such incompetent, dishonest, morons. Best of luck to all those of you still doing so.

Of course he didn't deliberately mislead anyone. He's a puppet. It's not as if he had a will of his own. He's just doing what he's told to do.

If he should be fired it would be because he's still responsible for public safety and as such he should have the power to conduct tests with an independent panel of experts. Instead he chose not to do so therefore he should be held responsible.

Of course that has always been his plan. Be the willing scapegoat and behind closed doors.....well lets just say "He's now set for life"

This guy is a genius though. The people don't want to know. The people want to forget. This allows them to live out there normal lives and enjoy Hanami under the nuclear radiated cherry blossoms. Might as well be an episode of "The Walking Dead".

I’m so>rry for our misjudgment

Raa-ight!!

The corruption and incompetency of Japanese government and TEPCO is beyond me. My friends in Japan always said to me there were nothing to worry about. I feel very sorry for all innocent people in Japan who are still suffering with this mess. The truth is that we cannot reverse what had happend. Sigh..........

through all of this mess, Edano is the ONE guy I actually still like...

Well past is past so let's get people in Fukushima tested for exposure now. Any children with any type of thyroid nodule of any size must be a.evacuated from the area and b.receive specialized medical care for free with the guardians of those children being made aware of the situation in an open manner.

Or

We could raise the exposure limits again?

Edano says he didn't deliberately mislead public about extent of nuclear crisis

Maybe he didn’t deliberately mislead public, but a lot of people including some JT readers were fooled as I can see the majority of the posters were praising him when he was appointed as the minister of METI last September.

http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/edano-to-be-next-industry-and-trade-minister#comment_1063281

Whether he did it deliberately or not is irrelevant, the fact is, he dido sled the public on several occasions. He deliberately downplayed the severity of the meltdown and the J-Gov was very tight lipped about the whole incident for quite some time. It was until the international community put pressure on the J-Gov and TEPCO that they came clean, which was nearly a month after the event. I still remember very clearly this mullet on the TV two weeks after the event claiming there was no meltdown, which he knew to be BS. Sorry mate, but you did deliberately mislead the public and the international community on several occasions.

The man should rot in jail somewhere.

Whether he did it deliberately or not is irrelevant, the fact is, he did mislead the public on several occasions. He deliberately downplayed the severity of the meltdown and the J-Gov was very tight lipped about the whole incident for quite some time. It was until the international community put pressure on the J-Gov and TEPCO that they came clean, which was nearly a month after the event. I still remember very clearly this mullet on the TV two weeks after the event claiming there was no meltdown, which he knew to be BS. Sorry mate, but you did deliberately mislead the public and the international community on several occasions.

"It depends upon your definition of 'IS'" W.J.C.

Lies upon lies. These people can take advantage of Japanese 曖昧to save their own hides at the expense of others. "We didn't DELIBERATELY lie to you!" This reminds me of Ichihashi trying to say that he didn't MEAN to kill her...J-Gov = same = complete BS

I assume that accidental misleading the public is okay. Why does accidental misleading the public sound so strange from a government official, especially knowing the well documented cosy relationship between government and the nuclear industry.

By the way there is this nice little bridge in Brooklyn going very cheap. Want to buy into it?

I am sorry dude, but we all know, too late of course, that your a lieing SOB!

If you had told us all that tepco very early on were all set to ABANDON the NPPs you can bet the publics reation, especially those closest wud have been different, I bet there are many 100s of thousands within the first 100km of that plant are bloody furious with the govts lies & deceit!

I wonder how many more of us wud have left if we hadnt been lied to, I know myself I might have left & the pleading of my relatives wud have been even harder to deal with!

All said & done where I am & because I aint young the mrs & I are probably not going to be affected too badly this time round, BUT all those younger people, that were within 100km say, my god!

Blair

http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/edano-to-be-next-industry-and-trade-minister#comment_1063281

I have read my post on this. Good point, Blair. I think he realized he can no longer hide the truth when the transcript between US/Japan actually became available. He is a lawyer, and he should have known better. He sure fooled me.

"There has been no radiation released. There will be no radiation released." That 'statement' some's up Edano's 'grasp' of the multiple Level 7 nuclear catastrophes at the Dai-ichi nuclear plant.

The hero of this disaster was PM naoto Kan. Kan passed a Feed in Tariff , which now pays Japanese homeowners who sell Solar power onto the grid 0.50 cents kWh for energy. Great! This will allow homeowners to replace the nuclear power plants!

The government, which had the responsibility to look out for its citizens, is under trial here. I can understand that and I agree with it. What about the trial for TEPCO?

"Trade and industry minister Yukio Edano told a parliamentary investigative panel that the government did not fully understand the damage at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant after a massive earthquake and tsunami last year."

Sorry, Edano, but if you and the rest of the government didn't fully understand the situation but said matter-of-fact that there was no risk, that's INTENTIONALLY misleading the public. Of course the government couldn't know the full extent of damage at the time, or the extent of the risks, but then saying there were no risks despite not knowing is a lie. Edano should be removed from government immediately, but this is Japan we're talking about, so he'll probably get promoted.

smith - of course he'll be promoted. He drew the short straw and was chosen to be the government spokesman. Getting up in front of the world media and telling straight out lies shows gaman and a willingness to take one for the team.

Surprise surprise. Edano didn't ''fully' understand the gravity of the situation. So by implication he had SOME understanding of the situation and based his judgements on this. That should be enough to save him from the charge of outright lies. It seems that Edano hasn't been briefed to fall on his sword.

Naturally there was a lot of confusion at the time, and TEPCO witheld information from the government. But...

... it took the government a year to reduce the contamination limit in food from 500Bq/kg to 100Bq/kg, and they've never had blanket, systematic testing of foodstuffs. I think they're following the maxim: it's easier to apologize than ask for permission.

I seem to remember a couple of weeks after the first explosion, monitors on the U.S. west coast were picking up telltale isotopes that screamed "meltdown", and Japan vehemently denied that a meltdown had occurred. Considering that Japanese monitors had to have detected those isotopes long before the U.S. west coast did, I'd say that truckloads of deliberate lying were being shoveled-out by the Japanese government and dumped on their citizens. They could have at least warned their citizens to put on hip-waders.

Trade and industry minister Yukio Edano told a parliamentary investigative panel that the government did not fully understand the damage at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant

Then why promote some unpredictable, uncontrollable, risky business you cannot understand when things go wrong? Why not try alternatives? Necessity is the mother of invention and where there is a will, there is a way. Look at Germany for instance; after Fukushima incident Germany, with even no earthquake and tsunami scares, closed several nuclear plants and launched an innovation hub for renewables and the result? Germany's new solar gadget produces electricity equivalent to 20 nuclear plants!!!!! <http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/05/26/us-climate-germany-solar-idUKBRE84P0FI20120526 > Germany is already positioning itself as the clean energy partner of choice. Where is Japan in the innovation space for renewables, which is tomorrow's energy business of choice?

I seem to remember a couple of weeks after the first explosion, monitors on the U.S. west coast were picking up telltale isotopes that screamed "meltdown", and Japan vehemently denied that a meltdown had occurred.

Yep, and this was the same time that information went out to the public, warning them not to believe in the "Harmful rumors spread by foreigners"

The worst nuclear accident. Period!

Not yet, anyways, How many of the workers at Chernobyl were dead due to acute radiation sickness within six months? Answer: 28 There have been zero deaths due to acute radiation sickness in Fukushima.

No, he didn't deliberately mislead, he just had to.

So in fact he was just gullible enough and sheep like enough to follow blindly what he was told to say. I am do glad I decided to take the buggerlugs clan out of Tokyo that weekend, making us "flyjin" instead of "baaajin" It's always better to be safe than sorry! Now as another poster pointed out, TEST THE KIDS IN FUKUSHIMA and atleast give them a fighting chance. Do all the debris in the area around Fukushima daiichi. All the contamination can be monitored and NOT spread throughout Japan (in, what the gov hopes, what will in crease the whole countries cancer rates thereby removing them from blame and lawsuits in 15-30 years.

The other people who should apologize are the nuclear expert professors from tokyo uni etc who daily got on TV and said the same as Edano.

I'd say edano and co were all way out of their depth. But they no doubt will be the next time something similar happens. Which is why, we are better off without nuclear plants.

If the average person who knows nothing about cesium, nuclear physics etc can't trust the cabinet or Japan's top university's nuclear experts, then it's pretty much game over.

Put it this way, if there's another earthquake and things start collapsing at Fukushima, is the public going to believe the govt this time when they say there aren't immediate risks?

Not yet, anyways, How many of the workers at Chernobyl were dead due to acute radiation sickness within six months? Answer: 28 There have been zero deaths due to acute radiation sickness in Fukushima.

We know more about how to handle nuclear explosions than they did back then. You can't use the deaths of Chernobyl as a fact that it was worse. Let's look at the damage, the size and the lies. Let's see how many have cancer in the next 20 years and then decide. In terms of government screw ups, Japan is leading by a mile.

Edano is a liar, only not a very good one.

Edano certainly downplayed the nature and magnitude of the Fukushima explosion which occured as a series of accidents in succession. Edano certainly underestimated the health impacts inspite of the fact that there were instruments available to measure the outgoing radiation and its dispersal in the air environment and water environment. More over Edano should have referred to the potential accident scenarios which could have clearly shown about the magnitude of the source terms and also the airpollution models which could have furnished the amount of radiation that got dispersal through air and got deposited at different distances from the nuclear power plant. If only Edano wanted to know the information to make an honest presentation to the public to protect them from the avoidable exposure to excessive levels of radiation could have obtained the information from various soures instead of deliberately misleading the public on the impact of explosion just for the convenience of not creating the public scare among the people and thereby made the public experience more radiation doses which could have been avoided. Prof.T.Shivaji Rao Director, Center for Environmental studies, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam.

I am sure Edano did not really know what was going on. The question is, who was feeding him the information that led him to his false statements and false downplaying? Why does he not name them?

We are getting no where like this and I think that is exactly what Edano is aiming for.

But in the end, I would have hated to have had Edano's or Kan's or Yoshida's job.

It's a lot easier being an anonymous commenter. And, I don't think Ozawa, or Hatoyama or the LDP would have handled things better.

I think the inquiries and courts should target their wrath at the top management of Tepco first. They're the ones I want to see take the stand.

Yasukuni,

And, I don't think Ozawa, or Hatoyama or the LDP would have handled things better.

True, I've said this numerous times as well. They would however most likely have had the benefit of more cooperative bureaucrats and members of the "nuclear village" that were supposed to help. Most of the managers in these organizations really disliked and distrusted Kan, which probably made communications all that more difficult. (Not that that is something that Kan should be blamed for).