TEPCO's Teleconference Video from March 16 to April 6, 2011 Shows TEPCO HQ's Ineptitude, Meddling by the Government (1)

Fukushima I Nuclear Plant Manager Yoshida said angrily to a manager in TEPCO HQ:

"If it [Reactor 3] explodes, we'll all die. Do you understand? Take it seriously and come up with the procedure!"

He was talking about the SDF helicopter's water dropping operation at the request of the Kan administration, which eventually took place on March 17, 2011.

On November 30, 2012, TEPCO released the 336 hours of its teleconference video from March 16 to 23, and from March 30 to April 6, 2011. TEPCO only made about 2 hours worth of the video available to the general public (online). The rest of the video is only available for viewing at TEPCO's headquarters and only by the qualified press (Japan press club members).

One such qualified press, Sankei Shinbun viewed part of the video, and wrote a series of articles on what they found.

Excerpts from Sankei Shinbun (12/1/2012) on the Self Defense Force spraying water onto the Spent Fuel Pool of Reactor 3 paint the scene as that of confusion and anger. The first segment below is from March 16, 2011, which is part of the video only available to the qualified press, and the second segment is on March 17, 2011, in the video TEPCO made available to public (embedded below, in Japanese only).

One caveat: Sankei has been highly critical of the Democratic Party of Japan's administrations, and they often go out of the way to emphasize the ham-handed meddling by the DPJ politicians.

[On March 16, 2011, Plant Manager Yoshida sternly speaks to a manager in TEPCO HQ. When the HQ manager suggests Yoshida should plan for emergency, Yoshida gets angry, and stops using the polite form of Japanese and breaks into a rather rude form, which I cannot fully render into English but tried my best.]

吉田昌郎所長「どういう水の入れ方をしていくのかというのをもうちょっとはっきりご指示いただきたい。手順書の形でもなんでもいいから」

Fukushima I Plant Manager Masao Yoshida: "How are they going to inject water? I would like you to instruct us a bit more clearly. Any instruction will do, like a procedure manual."

本店社員「手順の確立も大事なんですが、速やかに退避するとかそういう態勢、準備も必要かと」

Manager at TEPCO HQ: "It is important to establish a procedure, but I think it is also necessary to prepare for emergency and quick retreat."

吉田所長「そうなんだけど、そういう手順書を本店で作ってほしいのよ。ないの、そういうの。ただ水入れりゃいいと思っていたのかよ。周りでわれわれみてんだぜ。それでお前、爆発したら死んじゃうんだぜ。やるけどさ、これ今やらないといけないことは分かるけどさ、だったらもっと真剣にそういうものは作っておいてくれよ」

Yoshida: "Yes, but I want the HQ to create a procedure manual. Don't you have it? The manual? You thought simply pouring water would do it, is that it? We'll all be watching, around [the reactor]. And you know what, if it explodes, we'll all die, you understand? We'll do it, I understand it has to be done right now. So get serious, and come up with the procedure, please!"

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《翌１７日午前９時４８分、最初の放水用ヘリが到着、３号機に水を投下する場面がテレビに流れた》

(March 17, 2011 at 9:48AM, the first helicopter arrived, and the dumping of water on Reactor 3 was shown on TV.) [It's about 33 minutes into the video.]

原発所員「これか。（水が）かかってねーよ」

A worker at Fukushima I Nuke Plant: "This is it? Where's the water?"

別の原発所員「あー。３号（水が）とどいてねーや。なんだよ」

Another worker: "Agh. (Water) didn't reach Reactor 3. What is this?"

原発所員「ああー。霧吹きやなあ」

The first worker: "Oh well.. It is just a spray."

Spraying the water from air and capturing it on video and releasing the video worldwide was an idea by the Kan administration to appeal to the world that the administration was in control of the accident. After seeing the video, according to the former State Department official Kevin Maher, the US government officials called in the Japanese ambassador and said to him,

"Look, you have to take this stuff seriously. We don't know what's going to happen."

Maher said the US government was terrified, in his interview in January this year, recalling the time. He published a book about the accident and the government response ("決断できない日本　The Japan That Can't Decide") last year, but no one in Japan seems to have paid any attention, as it contradicts the official stories of Japan and the US which were all praise of this daring operations caught live on camera.

Speaking of helicopter, Maher also said last year that one of the items freely offered by the US government to the Japanese government right after the nuclear accident started was an unmanned helicopter. After going back and forth, with the Japanese government asking about the technical details and trivial points about the helicopter and its operation, the big question finally came from the Japanese government: "In the event that the helicopter is contaminated by radiation, what will happen with regards to compensation?"

US officials must have thought they were speaking with the space aliens.

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Kevin Maher: "US government was privately terrified over the unfolding crisis" over Fukushima I Nuke Plant accident

Kevin Maher was the director of the State Department's Office of Japan Affairs in Japan when he was abruptly dismissed over his alleged remarks about "lazy Okinawans" one day before the March 11, 2011 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster. He continued to work at the US embassy after the disaster, and wrote a book titled "The Japan That Can't Decide".

In his interview with AFP, he says:

The "US government was privately terrified over the unfolding crisis" at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

After the operation to drop water on the reactors from a SDF helicopter, "the US government called in the Japanese ambassador and said, look, you have to take this stuff seriously. We don't know what's going to happen".

From AFP (1/26/2012; emphasis is mine):

US ex-diplomat pulls no punches on Japan

By Shaun Tandon (AFP)

WASHINGTON — US diplomats typically are unfailingly polite and reverential towards their countries of expertise and, upon retirement, go away quietly into research or business. Not so with Kevin Maher.

Since he was unceremoniously removed from his position last year, the veteran US diplomat on Japan has gone on the offensive with biting criticism on issues from Tokyo's political paralysis to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

To his own surprise, he has found an eager audience. A book he wrote in Japanese, "The Japan That Can't Decide," has sold more than 100,000 copies and for weeks topped the country's best-seller list for non-fiction paperbacks.

Maher's main thesis is that Japan -- which has had six new prime ministers since 2006 -- has been crippled by a failure of its politicians to accept responsibility and, hence, to make hard decisions.

Maher pointed to the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was devastated by the March 11 tsunami, and dismissed the government's declaration last month that it had stabilized the leaking reactors.

"It's not stable," Maher said recently at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "Tokyo is safe, but Fukushima Daiichi is in really bad shape."

The State Department sacked Maher as its Japan desk chief just a day before the historic 9.0-magnitude earthquake but he stayed on for another month to coordinate the US disaster response.

Maher said that the US government was privately terrified over the unfolding crisis. He accused Japan's then prime minister, Naoto Kan, of evading responsibility and trying to pass the problem over to the plant's operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co.

"I remember sitting on a task force many a time thinking, 'Who the hell is in control in Japan?' The government's not doing anything. Kan made one trip and flew up and got in the way and came back," Maher said.

Maher said that he watched in horror as he saw television footage of a sole helicopter dropping water on the stricken plant.

"Is that the best Japan can do?" Maher said. "Frankly what happened is the US government called in the Japanese ambassador and said, look, you have to take this stuff seriously. We don't know what's going to happen."

Maher said that the United States was even looking at whether it would have to evacuate some 100,000 Americans, although it soon became clear that Tokyo was not in harm's way.

Maher's earlier strident critiques led to his downfall. While in office, he spoke to students about Okinawa -- home to half of the 47,000 US troops in Japan -- and accused local leaders of playing on mainland Japanese guilt to "extort" concessions. Japanese media accounts of his remarks stirred outrage.

Maher, 57, who has worked on Japan for three decades and has a Japanese wife, called the controversy "water under the bridge" and said he was making a good living as a consultant.

Nonetheless, he criticized the two officials he said were behind his dismissal -- then deputy secretary of state Jim Steinberg and Ambassador to Japan John Roos.

"They just wanted to get this out of the press and decided that the best thing was not to address whether these press reports were actually true or not but just to remove me from my position," Maher said.

Despite his criticism, Maher -- like current US officials -- sees bright spots in Japan's latest prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, who is pushing forward controversial plans to raise taxes and join talks on a US-backed trade pact.

Maher said he has received little backlash over his book. He believed he won over potentially hostile readers with a message that Japan worked well in the past and needed to return to its traditions.

"We used to have an image back in the '80s, if a Japanese corporation had a problem, you were worried that the chairman would go to commit seppuku," he said, referring to ritual suicide.

"He would take responsibility even if it was not a mistake that he made. But now it's reversed in Japan," he said.

Maher said he was surprised when he visited Okinawa to promote his book.

"There were four demonstrators. When I was consul general in Okinawa, I could always get 40."

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.

Maher's alleged criticism of Okinawans is actually shared by many in Japan, probably even by Okinawans themselves. But in the "tatemae" (facade) society you are obliged to just look at the superficial meaning of things, live and die by it.

Dropping a bucket of water at a time from a sole SDF helicopter was a brilliant idea concocted by the Kan administration to, of all things, impress the US. From Maher's account, it sure did impress the US, even if it was not the way Kan had hoped.

In the early days of the nuclear crisis, the Kan administration steadfastly declined (while superficially "considering") the offers for help in dealing with the nuclear accident from foreign governments, particularly from the US and Russia. Other than the "face" issue I still don't know the reason. That Japan is somehow different and superior, I guess. It is different, for sure. I remember the politicians talking about "sovereignty" as the reason for "sending the offer for help to the appropriate government committee to discuss whether it is feasible to accept the offer and if so how" - i.e. declining help.

His praise of Yoshihiko Noda is not surprising coming from a US official, as the prime minister is doing everything in his power to please what the US is allegedly demanding. Too bad there's this thing called the Internet and the Japanese are seeing him for what he is - a stooge. His administration most certainly welcomes Twitter's decision to censor tweets that are deemed "illegal" by any government.

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US Government Considered Evacuation of 90,000 US Citizens in Tokyo

According to Kevin Maher, a US diplomat and the former director of the Japan Desk at the US State Department in Japan, the US government considered evacuating all 90,000 US citizens in Tokyo right after the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident.

From Yomiuri Shinbun (10:30PM JST 8/17/2011):

東京電力福島第一原子力発電所の事故直後、米政府が、東京在住の米国人９万人全員を避難させる案を検討していたことが分かった。

The US government was considering the plan to evacuate all 90,000 US citizens living in Tokyo right after the Fukushima I Nuclear power Plant accident, according to a new book.

元米国務省日本部長のケビン・メア氏が、１９日に出版する「決断できない日本」（文春新書）で明らかにした。９万人避難が実行されていれば、他国の政府対応はもとより、日本人にもパニックを引き起こしかねないところだった。

The book, which is to be published on August 17, is titled "決断できない日本 (Japan that cannot decide)" (Bunshun Shinsho) and was written by Kevin Maher, former Japan Desk director at the US State Department. If the plan to evacuate 90,000 Americans had been carried out, it could have triggered reactions from other foreign governments, and caused panic among the Japanese.

　メア氏は震災直後、国務省内の特別作業班で日本側との調整にあたり、著書にその内幕をつづった。

Maher's book recounts the inside information that Maher obtained as he was part of the special task force within the State Department right after the March 11 disaster, communicating with the Japanese side.

　米国人の避難が提起されたのは、３月１６日未明（現地時間）の会議だった。米側は無人偵察機グローバルホークの情報から原子炉の温度が異常に高いことを把握し、「燃料が既に溶融している」と判断。菅政権が対応を東電任せにしているとみて、「不信感は強烈」な状況だったという。米国人の避難を求めた政府高官に対し、メア氏らは「日米同盟が大きく揺らぐ事態になる」と反論し、実行に移さなかったとしている。

The subject of evacuating the US citizens was raised in the early hours on March 16 (local time). The US had already knew about the unusually high temperature of the reactors from the Global Hawk data, and determined that "the fuel has already melted". The US thought the Kan administration was simply leaving the disaster response to TEPCO, and "distrust [in the administration] was intense". The US high-ranking officials wanted to evacuate the US citizens [from Tokyo] but the local officials including Maher objected, as "it would severely undermine the US-Japan alliance". The plan was never implemented.

It's very heart-warming to know they left 90,000 US citizens in Tokyo under the radioactive plume, which literally rained on them on March 15, 16 and 21, for the sake of "alliance", isn't it?

I also remember back in March that the US investment bank Goldman Sachs flew in high-ranking executives to Tokyo, and told the US employees there in no uncertain terms that they were to stay put in Tokyo, or they would lose their jobs.

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US State Dept's Crowley Resigns Over WikiLeaks Remark, But He Should Have Resigned Over #Japan's Tsunami Remark

...as far as I'm concerned.

It was reported in the Japanese media (here's one from Sankei Shinbun, in Japanese) right after the earthquake that P. J. Crowley, chief spokesman of the US State Department, tweeted about Japan's earthquake of March 11.

The particular tweet on March 11 was later removed, but from what I can figure from the Japanese translation that was reported there, Mr. Crowley seems to have called the democratic movement that's sweeping the north Africa and Middle East a tidal wave - tsunami, and equated that tsunami with what just hit Japan.

Many Japanese, shaken right after the largest earthquake they have ever known, took his tweet to mean Mr. Crowley was equating the democratic movement in the Middle East with the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and he considered both to be good, albeit implicitly.

The Japanese may be overreacting, but Crowley's tweet was insensitive to say the least. And it came right after Kevin Maher, director of the State Department's Office of Japan and American Consulate General in Naha, Okinawa, was fired for calling Okinawans "lazy" and "master extortionists". (That was on March 10, one day before the earthquake...)

Here's Crawley's tweet, as I reconstitute from the Japanese translation back into English (and therefore not exactly what Mr. Crawley may have written):

I'm looking forward to seeing (democratic) tsunami rushing to all of Middle East. Right now I'm seeing a different kind of tsunami rushing to Japan.

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