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Related: About this forumJapan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo in Nuclear Crisis
Japan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo in Nuclear Crisis
Issei Kato/Reuters, via Bloomberg
Published: February 27, 2012
TOKYO In the darkest moments of last years nuclear accident, Japanese leaders did not know the actual extent of damage at the plant and secretly considered the possibility of evacuating Tokyo, even as they tried to play down the risks in public, an independent investigation into the accident disclosed on Monday.
The investigation by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, a new private policy organization, offers one of the most vivid accounts yet of how Japan teetered on the edge of an even larger nuclear crisis than the one that engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. A team of 30 university professors, lawyers and journalists spent more than six months on the inquiry into Japans response to the triple meltdown at the plant, which followed a powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that shut down the plants cooling systems.
The team interviewed more than 300 people, including top nuclear regulators and government officials, as well as the prime minister during the crisis, Naoto Kan. They were granted extraordinary access, in part because of a strong public demand for greater accountability and because the organizations founder, Yoichi Funabashi, a former editor in chief of the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, is one of Japans most respected public intellectuals.
An advance copy of the report describes how Japans response was hindered at times by a debilitating breakdown in trust between the major actors: Mr. Kan; the Tokyo headquarters of the plants operator, Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco; and the manager at the stricken plant. The conflicts produced confused flows of sometimes contradictory information in the early days of the crisis, the report said.
It describes frantic phone calls ...
Issei Kato/Reuters, via Bloomberg
Published: February 27, 2012
TOKYO In the darkest moments of last years nuclear accident, Japanese leaders did not know the actual extent of damage at the plant and secretly considered the possibility of evacuating Tokyo, even as they tried to play down the risks in public, an independent investigation into the accident disclosed on Monday.
The investigation by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, a new private policy organization, offers one of the most vivid accounts yet of how Japan teetered on the edge of an even larger nuclear crisis than the one that engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. A team of 30 university professors, lawyers and journalists spent more than six months on the inquiry into Japans response to the triple meltdown at the plant, which followed a powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that shut down the plants cooling systems.
The team interviewed more than 300 people, including top nuclear regulators and government officials, as well as the prime minister during the crisis, Naoto Kan. They were granted extraordinary access, in part because of a strong public demand for greater accountability and because the organizations founder, Yoichi Funabashi, a former editor in chief of the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, is one of Japans most respected public intellectuals.
An advance copy of the report describes how Japans response was hindered at times by a debilitating breakdown in trust between the major actors: Mr. Kan; the Tokyo headquarters of the plants operator, Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco; and the manager at the stricken plant. The conflicts produced confused flows of sometimes contradictory information in the early days of the crisis, the report said.
It describes frantic phone calls ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/world/asia/japan-considered-tokyo-evacuation-during-the-nuclear-crisis-report-says.html
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Japan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo in Nuclear Crisis (Original Post)
kristopher
Feb 2012
OP
FBaggins
(26,757 posts)1. "Weighed" and came to the correct conclusion.
There was no need.
madokie
(51,076 posts)2. If my memory serves me right the only thing that they had going for them was the wind
and it was blowing out to sea, again if my memory serves me right.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)3. It would have been irresponsible not to.