#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Government Considering 30-Kilometer-Radius Evacuation

instead of "stay indoors" instruction for the residents "trapped" between 20 and 30 kilometers and being starved of food and water, with radioactive particles falling down on their soil.

Yomiuri Shinbun (in Japanese; 8:43PM JST 3/24/2011) reports that the top officials of the ruling party (the Democratic Party of Japan) were in talks with the opposition leaders to re-designate the area between 20 and 30 kilometer radii as "evacuation" zone.

It seems like one or two politicians (or their faithful private secretaries) must have read the article on Asahi Shinbun (see my post, I translated the article in full), and thought "Hmmmm, the local election campaign just started, it would look bad on us if these people starve to death ...."

From the Yomiuri article, it seems to have been the opposition politicians who requested the DPJ top officials that the government re-consider the evacuation zone designation. The DPJ officials told the opposition that "their request would be duly transmitted to the government."

According to Yomiuri, the Naoto Kan's Cabinet Secretary Edano said, "Since it's been quite a while since the "stay indoors" evacuation started [between 20 and 30 kilometers from the plant], we have instructed [our officials] to review the situation in order for the government to decide whether it can continue." But he also said, "We should be careful not to send the "wrong" message that the danger has increased."

The danger HAS increased, Mr. Mouthpiece, and you know it. It's been 13 days after the accident, 12 days after the building top blew up on the Reactor No.1. And it's raining heavily in CA, in a very unusual winter storm, with jet stream coming all the way from Japan.

What was the point of using the "radius", to begin with? The land is not flat where the fallout or radiation spread out evenly. Wind doesn't blow from the nuke plant out to the surrounding areas in a concentric manner. There's prevailing wind in the upper atmosphere, which may be quite different from the surface wind direction.

This is the Nuclear Safety Committee simulation they released on March 23 on potential internal radiation exposure (cumulative, for 12 days) on thyroid gland (unit is milli-sievert); the dotted circle designates the area within 30-kilometer radius:

This is the actual data collected by the unmanned drones by the US military on radiation levels in the environment (unit is micro-sievert). It corresponds pretty well with the map above, with north-westerly direction from the plant getting higher exposure. US Department of Energy seems to have started to release the reconnaissance data, whether the Japanese government likes it or not, at http://blog.energy.gov/content/situation-japan:

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US Government, PLEASE Release the Data on #Fukushima Plant, Radiation, ASAP

The Japanese government is proven utterly incapable of dealing with this crisis, and as the result the citizens of the country are exposed to danger that they are not aware of.

Please UNILATERALLY release all the data that you've collected since the earthquake on the Fukushima Plant, on radiation and radioactive material fallout, which you say has been shared fully with the Japanese government with the permission for release. The Japanese government is still sitting on it. Only yesterday top officials at Nuclear Safety Agency started to admit they may have screwed up badly for not releasing THEIR own simulation data sooner.

Face. That's all they care about. And academic prestige, perhaps, as these officials are from Japan's top universities.

If the Commander in Chief is still groggy from his vacation in Latin America, go over him.

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#Japan's Nuclear Safety Committee Chairman: #Radioactive Fallout May Be Severe Enough to Cause Internal Radiation Exposure in Some Locations

"Now they're telling us" Part II. (Part I is my previous post, about Reactor 1 potential meltdown.) Government kills, by not sharing information. I'm sure the Committee kept refining and refining their simulation without telling anyone outside their Committee so when they presented it was neat and perfect. That's how these bureaucrats are.

From Asahi Shinbun (in Japanese, ink added; 11:34PM JST 3/23/2011), reporting the same press conference that Yomiuri Shinbun was reporting on:

Japan's Nuclear Safety Committee announced for the first time its simulation based on the SPEEDI [System for Prediction of Environmental Emergency Dose Information, collected by Japan's Ministry of Education and Science] data as to the radiation level and the radioactive material fallout following the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident. According to the simulation, in the most extreme case where radioactive iodine spreads from the Plant toward northwest and south it is possible to have internal radiation exposure of the thyroid gland exceeding 100 milli-sievert in 12 days, even outside the 30-kilometer evacuation zone.

The Committee calculated the internal radiation exposure of the thyroid gland of a one year old child, considered the most vulnerable to radioactive iodine, under the extreme condition that the child has been outside from 6AM on March 12 till midnight on March 24. The Committee calculated the possible amount of radioactive iodine that has been released, based on the monitoring data from various cities and towns.

According to the calculation, the area where one (a 1-year-old child) would suffer 100 milli-sievert irradiation if stayed outdoors all day everyday for 12 days included Minami-Soma City, Iidate Village, Kawamata-cho (the last two produced vegetables with high radioactive iodine and cesium concentration) which are located northeast from the Plant, and Iwaki City, which is located south. 100 milli-sievert is the level where the decision is made whether potassium iodide should be administered. If indoors, the level would drop to 1/4 to 1/10.

Committee Chairman Haruki Madarame and his officials told the press that they assumed the extreme case in their simulation, and that there was no need for any immediate action.

The committee started to collect SPEEDI data on March 16, and started to do the simulation on March 20 when the wind turned inland.

The red dot in the middle is Fukushima I Nuke Plant. The red dot to the south of the first one is Fukushima II Nuke Plant. The dotted circle indicates the 30-kilometer evacuation zone (20-kilometer evacuation zone, and 20-30 kilometer "stay indoors" zone).

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#Japan #Earthquake: Government That Kills - Police Refuses to Issue Travel Permit to Medical Workers

Did you even know that people need to obtain a special permit to travel to the areas affected by the earthquake and tsunami?

One episode reported by Yomiuri Shinbun (in Japanese, not a word for word translation; 2:35PM JST 3/21/2011):

Frustration mounted as the police in inland Iwate Prefecture refused to issue an emergency travel permit to medical workers. The workers had sought the permit so that they could deliver much needed medicines to the hospitals in coastal area.

This particular police has issued hundreds of this permit to medical workers and local officials. With this permit, they can travel to the areas restricted to traffic. Since the permit also allows preferential allocation of fuel at gas stations, people have sought to obtain the permit to secure the fuel for their cars and trucks.

However, the police has stopped issuing this emergency travel permit except for the long-distance travel on the highway.....

The reason? The police cannot issue the permit to people who simply want to secure the fuel under their current system. So what do they do? They stop issuing it for all applicants.

Yes, even to the medical workers who wanted to deliver medicines to hospitals along the coast that are without food, water, heat, and medicine for the patients.

I bet that if these medical workers depart for the coastal area without the permit anyway, they will be stopped by the police on the way; the police will insist that they turn back because they do not have the necessary permit. If the workers still refuse to turn back, they will probably be arrested.

It's not just information that the Japanese government at all levels wants to control. It controls the access to the affected areas. And it tells the citizens it's all for their own good.

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#Fukushima Nuke Plant: Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency's Idea of Nuclear Emergency Response

Consensus through bureaucracy that killed, kills, and will kill.

I found a pictorial diagram of Japan's nuclear emergency response, from Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), which I post below.

Never mind what each bubble is about. The lower left-hand corner is the residents affected by the nuclear emergency. The rest are all governments - national, prefectural, city, town, village - and public research institutions, police, the SDF, fire. So NISA and the national government assumed that all these governments, agencies, nuclear research institutions would remain intact in case of nuclear emergency, and that they could continue merrily on setting up committees at every single level, with expert advice from NISA.

Clearly, it never occurred to them that a "nuclear emergency" can happen as the result of a big earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku and Kanto area along the Japan Tranch, one of the most active undersea faults in the world, and that their beloved bureaucratic organizations from the national government agencies on down to town and village level may be wiped out as the result of the earthquake and/or tsunami. Which is exactly what happened.

From what I can tell from my reading so far, NISA thought a "nuclear emergency" would arise from operational mistakes by the nuclear power plant operator.

The circle around the affected residents is small, but even smaller is a red oblong circle in the lower right-hand corner. That is the scene of the nuclear emergency. The arrow going to this red circle comes from the bubble right above, which is the plant operator, research institutions, police, SDF, fire, who are to prevent the accident from getting bigger under the direction from the big bubble in the center - a grand coalition of governments and agencies with committees and advisors.

For the government and NISA, what is more important to them is rather obvious from this diagram: their organization.

Is it any wonder that the Japanese government has been acting clueless ever since the accident?

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Japanese Government Finally Accepts US Offer of 4 Unmanned Fire Engines

that can pump water CONTINUOUSLY by REMOTE CONTROL, according to Yomiuri Shinbun (in Japanese; 3:04AM JST 3/20/2011).

Duh.

But the Japanese government had to do the grandstanding to show to the foreigners and to the Japanese that they were fully in charge, that what they were doing was what foreigners could have done anyway. "Look at our own brave soldiers and police and fire fighters are saving the plant!"

In the process they unnecessarily exposed the SDF soldiers, TEPCO employees, fire fighters, police to high radiation, probably ruined their fire engines with salt water, and exposed the earthquake-stricken Japanese with increasing radiation. All for the show.

All the while, there were these US-made engines that can pump water continuously and with remote control. All they needed to do was to ask, or to accept the offer.

As I posted in my last post, the Japanese government has had a reconnaissance video taken by the US Air Force drones, ever since March 12; they've been sitting on it. They have thermal imaging of one of the badly damaged reactor from the Israeli company, and they've been sitting on it.

What a criminal act that has been, suppressing and/or ignoring the data that didn't come from themselves, refusing the help that could have made a tremendous difference if accepted at the onset of the crisis. It is a crime against humanity. No amount of bowing and crying in the press conference will excuse their bureaucratic tunnel vision in the time of crisis.

In the time of the gravest crisis that the nation has faced, these politicians and bureaucrats (I count TEPCO in, as it was a government corporation) have retreated into what they know best - how to be bureaucratic and stickler for the rules and regulations.

Sadly, the Japanese people are so docile and so conditioned at this point that it is difficult for them to see that it is the government that kills. Instead, they continue to look to their government to do the right things for them. Just sad.

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Japanese Government Says It Was TEPCO Who Turned Down the US Offer for Help

not them. Whatever.

Yomiuri Shinbun (in Japanese; 3:11PM JST 3/18/2011) says:

The government source said today that the Japanese government declined the offer for help from the US government after the accident at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant because "TEPCO said they can do it all by themselves", that it was TEPCO who deemed any foreign assistance unnecessary.

According to the government source, the US government offered the US military helicopters for use right after the March 11 earthquake. The Japanese government has been accepting foreign aids only after it thoroughly considers the needs in the earthquake/tsunami-hit areas. Some say the government "did not decline, but put it on hold for further consideration".

Sir Humphrey Appleby would be so proud.... I remember him saying in one of the episode, something like this:

"Prime Minister, we never "decline" a request from our constituents. We just tell them we will consider their request thoroughly in a committee, then we don't need to do anything..."

Exactly what's happening in Japan.

And always blame others. So what they've probably unnecessarily endangered large number of people in the area.?

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#Fukushima I Nuke Plant: Japanese Government Turned Down Offer for Help from US Government

Government kills. I don't have anything more to add.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (in Japanese, 8:12AM JST, 3/18/2011):

A senior official of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) disclosed yesterday that the Japanese government [headed by their party leader Naoto Kan] had turned down the offer for help from the US government regarding the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

According to the official, the US government offered help as soon as the damage on Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant was known after the March 11 earthquake. However, the US government's offer was based on the premise that the reactor(s) would be killed. The Japanese government and TEPCO believed it was possible to repair the cooling facilities, and probably declined the offer as "too radical".

Some in the government and the DPJ point out that if Prime Minister Kan had accepted the US government offer for help at that point, they might have averted the serious current crisis at the Nuclear Plant involving explosions and radiation leak.

A similar incident took place in the Kobe earthquake of 1995. After the raging fire destroyed a district in Kobe, the chief of the fire department in charge of that district faced harsh criticism as he didn't order the fire engines to draw sea water to extinguish fire. His answer? Sea water would have damaged the pumps of his fire engines.

Government kills. Period.

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Paging US Military Helicopters... Please Drop FOOD, MEDICINE, and DIESEL POWER GENERATORS To These Coordinates...

They are hospitals in the Tohoku region (Yomiuri Shinbun, 3/18/2011). They desperately need food, water, fuel/power generators, medicine, infant formulas, diapers, beds and blankets for their patients, but very little is coming their way. (And it is not because of "hoarding", Mr. Cabinet Secretary.)

They have cancer patients who need chemotherapy.

Please ignore the protocols dealing with a sovereign government, and just do it. The government that does not even try to secure the lives of its citizens has lost its legitimacy. Not much different from the Mubarak regime or the Gaddafi regime. Egyptians got rid of the Mubaraks (good for Egyptians), and Brits and French are going in to take out Gaddafi (good for Brits and French).

To the hospital doctors, nurses, and workers: How about some good old fashioned way of heating? There are wood debris all around you in abundance. How about some outdoor bon fires? Take your patients out and warm them around the fire.

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Coordinates of the hospitals (by Google Earth):

Ishimaki Kowan Hospital (石巻港湾病院), Ishimaki City, Miyagi Prefecture
38 25' 38.07" N 141 18' 26.77" E

Sennan Central Hospital (仙南中央病院), Shibata-cho, Miyagi Prefecture
38 03' 46.84" N 140 46' 04.94" E

Minami-Soma Municipal Hospital (南相馬市市立総合病院), Minami-Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture
37 38' 15.04" N 140 59' 06.23" E

Oomachi Hospital (大町病院), Minami-Soma City, Fukushima Prefecture
37 38' 23.89" N 140 58' 03.39" E

Tono City Hospital (岩手県遠野市県立遠野病院), Tono City, Iwaki Prefecture
39 20' 19.32"N 141 32' 32.47" E

Ninohe Hospital (二戸市県立二戸病院), Ninohe City, Iwate Prefecture
40 17' 59.58" N 141 18' 22.44" E

There are but a small number of hospitals in the Tohoku area hit hardest by the earthquake and tsunami.

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#Japan #Earthquake: More on "Government That Kills" - 29 People Have Died Due to Lack of Food, Heat, Medical Care

After surviving the worst natural disaster in the nation's history, people have started to die because of the government who cannot even deliver the food and water to the officially designated shelters and are too timid or too bureaucratic to ask for help that matters.

And to read some of the comments from officials and directors of the hospitals will make your blood boil. Sticklers for rules, and too timid and afraid (or quite possibly, ignorant) of steps that they could take but for which they would have to cut some bureaucratic red tape.

Information from Yomiuri Shinbun (in Japanese, emphasis added; 2:15AM JST 3/18/2011), with my comments in []:

The Emergency Response Committee of Fukushima Prefecture announced that total 19 people died between March 14 and 16. They were evacuated from hospitals within 20-kilometer radius of Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant to the shelter in Iwaki City. 2 of them died on the way to the shelter, and 19 died at the shelter.

[Iwaki City is 51.5 kilometers, or 32 miles away from the Nuke Plant, and it would take 1 hour by car IF THE ROAD IS THERE and in GOOD CONDITION. How long did it take to get to Iwaki??]

According to the Committee, they were elderly patients from two hospitals in the evacuation area (in Ookuma-cho), and they were not ambulatory. They were put on a bus and transported to the shelters in Iwaki City including a high school gym. Two patients died on the bus, and 19 patients died after they reached the shelter. Doctors sent by the Prefecture government treated the gravely ill at the shelters, but due to lack of medical supplies and facilities they couldn't do much.

[Okuma-cho is about 11 kilometers (7 miles) from the Nuke Plant. It is still 30 miles to Iwaki City. And the government officials put them on a bus??? And where did they take these gravely ill elderly patients? A high school gym. Are they trying to tell me that there are no hospitals left standing in Iwaki City? Or is it because they, the government officials, have to bring "evacuees" to an "emergency shelter" - schools, gyms - because that's the rule?]

In a hospital in Tagajo City in Miyagi Prefecture, 7 patients died by March 17 evening, mostly 80 to 90 years old, gravely ill patients. The hospital's first floor was flooded with tsunami, and there is no water or electricity. The hospital director says "the possibility of the shock from the earthquake and cold (as there is no heating in the hospital) contributing to these deaths is probably not zero."

[His words, literal translation: "probably not zero", while fully aware that it was almost all of it. It is a euphemism that the Japanese often use, I'm fully aware of that. But it is a euphemism that too often used by people in power positions - politicians, directors, CEOs - to diminish the gravity of the situation and evade any personal responsibility.]

So my biggest question is: WHY DIDN'T THEY (OFFICIALS) ASK FOR HELP FROM THE SDF?

The Self Defense Force has helicopters that can transport gravely ill patients. Did they ask?

My guess is they never did. The reason they never did, again my guess, is that they knew that the request had to travel the formal chain of bureaucracy, and they knew (as they do this all the time in their line of work) that the request would take a very long time to reach to the top. Yes, to the top or near the top, because the Prime Minister of Japan has asserted his authority to be in charge of everything related to the earthquake/tsunami disaster.

Even if they asked, I doubt that the SDF's bureaucrats would have done anything without the order from their boss, the Defense Minister or his boss, Prime Minister.

So they put them on a bus in Fukushima, sent them off to a airy, draughty high school gym with little heat, little medical equipment or facilities, and hoped for the best, at best. At worst, they just didn't care as long as they followed orders to evacuate people.

Or they just left them there in a hospital with no water and no electricity, and comment after the deaths that the cold may have something to do with it, maybe.

So many more will die. Now that the foreign rescue workers may start to leave the country because of the worries over nuclear radiation, the Japanese people are on their own to survive, and that survival is threatened by their own government.

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