Now They Tell Us

From the BBC: Japan ‘unprepared’ for Fukushima nuclear disaster

Japan was unprepared for a nuclear accident on the scale of the one at the Fukushima plant, the government said in a report to be submitted to the IAEA.

The report says poor oversight may also have contributed to the crisis.

The authorities have pledged to make the country’s nuclear regulator (Nisa) independent of the industry ministry, which also promotes nuclear power.

It comes after Nisa doubled its initial estimate of leaked radiation in the first week after the disaster.

The nuclear safety agency now says 770,000 terabecquerels escaped into the atmosphere following the 11 March disaster – more than double its earlier estimate of 370,000 terabecquerels.
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Earlier, Nisa said that in reactor No 1, molten nuclear fuel dropped to the bottom of the pressure vessel within five hours of the quake – 10 hours earlier than initially estimated by operator Tepco.

The safety agency also said a meltdown damaged the No 2 reactor after 80 hours, and the No 3 reactor after 79 hours of the twin natural disasters.

But the government says it is still on track to bring the reactors at Fukushima to a cold shutdown by January at the latest.

So, they allowed all of the theater of TEPCO working to prevent meltdowns, and the busy work of laying new power cables, knowing that things were already out of control, and they set up a 20 kilometer exclusion zone despite knowing the radiation risk mandated the evacuation of a much larger zone. They weren’t protecting people – they were protecting TEPCO.

This is a level 7 incident, and has been one since the fourth day after the tsunami.