Why Don't They Get Angry In Japan?

Explosive Allegations About Fukushima Plant

During this week it's come to light that radioactive Iodine, Cesium and Tellurium were found in the areas around Namie and Ohkuma nearby the Fukushima plant on the 12th March this year. That is, they were detected shortly after the plant was hit by the Tsunami.

In the linked article Kenichi Ohmae argues (and remember, he studied nuclear physics so he's as good as any commentator on this) that the only way the radioactive Tellurium could have ended up in those areas is if there was a meltdown of the reactor core immediately after the tsunami. What's worse than that, it seems NISA - the Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency - knew about the meltdown of the reactor core but didn't make it public. I can't emphasise enough how absurd and malicious this omission is, given that the US immediately wanted a 50km exclusion zone around the Fukushima plant for its personnel during the short-lived Operation Tomodachi.

How could the US have jumped to that conclusion so early? What does this mean?

What Kenichi Ohmae is saying is that the US knew of the meltdown, either because it has expert means of detecting reactor cores and radiation leaks because it has developed tools to detect activities in places like North Korea, or because NISA told them but then didn't tell the people of Japan. Think about that for a moment. It's outright treachery. Then this week, NISA turn around and claim "we forgot to release this information. We had no intention of hiding this information." Ohmae argues that the only reason they would say such a thing as they had no intention of hiding, is because it is exactly the intention that they had.

What kind of government organ fails to inform its people of such vital facts? But wait, there's more.

Ohmae then goes to suspect that the only reason they would hide it is because if anything is a dead give away that the reactor core had melted down after the 11th, it would have been the radioactive isotopes of tellurium found in the neighbouring townships -and they must have known the meltdown of the core took place shortly after the tsunami event. Which mans the government as led by Naoto Kan knew about this and covered up this information. It's a perfectly reasonable suspicion. Heck, it makes more sense than the actual sequence of events as described by the government. Which means all those workers getting the reactors under control were probably working in much worse radioactivity than first reported.

Hidehiko Nishiyama of the NISA was only put into his position of Assistant Vice-Minister of NISA after Koichiro Nakamura was fired from the same post for letting slip on 12th of March that there was a distinct possibility that the reactor core had indeed melted down. That is to say, they fired Nakamura because he wouldn't "maintain the fiction" that there was no reactor core meltdown, and installed Nishiyama who would expediently play along with the Prime Minster's office to cover up this vital fact.

I know he recently survived a motion of no confidence, but seriously, if members of the Diet knew about this cover up, then they seriously should look at putting in that motion again immediately. All this is quite an abnormal state of affairs, as Ohmae points out - but then again the chain of events and the susequent revelation of poor risk management has also been abnormal. This is beyond the pail. I don't understand why there isn't more fury and expressions of anger about this cover up. So the question is, why aren't there people marching in the streets trying to get rid of Naoto Kan right now?

Oh I forgot, everybody's indoors, afraid of the radioactive fallout.