Falsification in Vogue: Niigata Prefecture Lied about Potassium Iodide Pill Purchase, Received Government Subsidy for Non-Purchase

(UPDATE) Asahi Shinbun did an interview with Mr. Izumida (in Japanese, and in English translation, 4/23/2014). He laments there is no "world-class standard" in Japanese nuclear regulation and nuclear accident preparedness. He got that right. No mention of potassium iodide pills that didn't exist but were stored in a former high school building.

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It's ironic that it happened in a prefecture whose governor, Hirohiko Izumida, has won wide followings at least among net users by presenting himself as the champion and defender of citizens against evil TEPCO over Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant.

Izumida's government did not purchase potassium iodide pills and lied about it, and received the national government subsidy for the non-existent pills.

Well, since Mr. Izumida does not want to allow TEPCO to vent even in a severe nuclear accident at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, who needs those pills? Right?

From Kyodo News (4/22/2014):

３０キロ圏内、ヨウ素剤ゼロ　柏崎刈羽、購入済み装う

No potassium iodide pills inside 30-kilometer radius of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa NPP, [Niigata prefectural government] pretended they had purchased the pills

新潟県は２２日、東京電力柏崎刈羽原発（同県）の過酷事故に備え、２０１２年度中に同原発から１０～３０キロ圏の住民向けに配備予定だった安定ヨウ素剤約１３２万錠を、購入しないまま放置していたと発表した。

Niigata prefectural government announced on April 22 that 1.32 million potassium iodide pills to be distributed to residents during the fiscal 2012 [that ended in March 31, 2013] in areas within 10 to 30 kilometer from TEPCO Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant (in Niigata Prefecture) in preparation for a severe accident hadn't been purchased.

期限の１３年３月末までに調達できるめどがたたず、担当職員が手続きを中断。書類に「購入済み」と記入したため、周囲もチェックできず、国の交付金約８００万円が支払われていた。

The government employee in charge stopped the purchasing process when there was no prospect of procuring the pills by the end of March in 2013. The employee wrote "already purchased" in the document, and no one verified it. The subsidy of about 8 million yen (US$80,000) from the national government was paid based on the document.

購入予定だったヨウ素剤は、防災用倉庫として使っている旧興農館高校（新潟市）に配備したとして、事務処理されていた。県医務薬事課は「速やかに調達したい」としている。

The [phantom] potassium iodide pills that were supposed to have been purchased were "stored" at a former high school building in Niigata City which is now used as a disaster prevention warehouse, according to the paperwork. The medical and pharmaceutical section of the prefectural government says they intend to procure as quickly as possible.

Like that 30-year-old so-called researcher, this hapless government employee should have held a press conference and declared,

"Potassium iodide pills exist! Potassium iodide pills are the truth! I have seen them 200 times!"

and all would have been forgiven.

With teary eyes of course. Water-proof mascara and eyeliner, if available.

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(UPDATED) (OT) Tokyo and Wider Kanto Area Are Snowed Under, New Tokyo Governor Says "What's the Big Deal? It Will Be Over in One Day."

(UPDATE) The national government finally had a teleconference with the Yamanashi prefectural government, in which the governor of Yamanashi asked for the national disaster response assistance, including sending personnel from Ministry of Land and Infrastructure who have expertise in dealing with heavy snow, according to a local Yamanashi newspaper.

Minister Furuya in charge of disaster prevention in the Abe administration instructed the ministries/agencies involved to collect detailed information using social networking websites.

...... (Who needs a national government for that?)

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The snow storm on February 14 and 15 seems to have been even more severe than the one the week earlier in Kanto. For a while, residents in prefectures that regularly have heavy snow falls were smiling and bemused at residents in Kanto, particularly in Tokyo, for making a huge fuss about the snow fall that was about 30 centimeters in Tokyo, until everyone started to realize that these large and small cities in Tokyo and wider Kanto area are not designed to expect a snow fall more than 20 centimeters at most.

Particularly hard-hit seems to be Yamanashi Prefecture, located west of Tokyo. Judging from tweets from residents there, the prefectural and municipal governments in Yamanashi are taking the weekend off.

A tweet below by a high school teacher tweeting information he gets from his student says "The road in front of my house [student's house] hasn't been snowplowed. Can't even walk."

【生徒宅より情報】我が家の道は 除雪車が はいってないので 歩けません。#山梨　#大雪 pic.twitter.com/kRnfqoW2jo

— 山口隆之 (@FujizoushiBot) February 16, 2014

The high school teacher also tweets, "There is no emergency response headquarters in the village, no information as to the plans by the government. Here's our situation and we need help."

Yoichi Masuzoe, the newly elected governor of Tokyo thanks to the organized votes from LDP/Komei/Soka Gakkai and hardly anything else, seems to be taking the weekend off also. His last twitter is on February 13. And if this screenshot is true...

お前が1日で終わってくれ！ RT @sa________ku: コレが本当なら、都内の雪災害に対して、都民自らが対処するしかないね。 pic.twitter.com/gMche06DH8

— マリィさんとべぇちゃん (@marieYK) February 16, 2014

Announcer (Seiji Miyane): "Speaking of disaster preparedness, this heavy snow [probably about the one a week ago] can be considered a disaster, don't you think?"
Masuzoe: "This is not a big deal at all. It will be over in a day."

"You should be over in a day" is the comment on the tweet.

If you recall, disaster preparedness was one of the supposedly main issues (unlike nuclear power policies) of the gubernatorial election held on February 9. Modus operandi of Masuzoe seems to be the same as the Kan administration in March 2011, particularly that of then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio "There is no immediate effect" Edano.

Close your eyes, and it doesn't exist any more.

And the national government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe? The twitter account of Prime Minister's Official Residence Emergency Response Information, which has nearly one million followers, made the last update on February 15, announcing the "Disaster Response Volunteer Week" event.

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Hilarity of the Day: Kochi Prefecture to Build Underground Shelter... Against Tsunami...

According to a Kochi resident (and nuclear scientist) whom I follow on Twitter, Kochi has been known to build absolutely worthless systems like some IT system incompatible with any system outside the prefecture that ended up as a costly, outdated LAN not even used inside Kochi Prefecture.

Kochi Prefecture, and particularly Muroto City, where this so-called shelter will be built, is regularly hit hard by typhoons. Kochi Prefecture is located in Shikoku, and is facing the Pacific Ocean.

This is plain idiocy, and therefore it will be generously funded by the national government as the Kochi governor is requesting. Just like so-called decontamination project, just like so-called wide-area disposal of disaster debris.

From Kyodo News (2/14/2013):

崖のシェルターに逃げろ　高知県、津波対策で建設へ

Run to the shelter in the cliff - Kochi Prefecture to construct shelters for tsunami

南海トラフ巨大地震で最大約３４メートルの津波が予測される高知県が、避難施設となるシェルターの第１号を室戸市沿岸部の崖の中に建設する方針を１４日までに決めた。

Kochi Prefecture is expected to be hit with a tsunami from Nankai Trough Quake as high as 34 meters (112 feet). The prefectural government decided on the plan on February 14 build the first tsunami shelter in a cliff on the coast of Muroto City.

候補地は県東部の同市佐喜浜町都呂地区。集落が海に近く、すぐ背後に崖が迫っている上、避難タワーを建設できるような適地がないという。

The candidate location is in Tsuro District of Sakihama-cho in Muroto City in the eastern Kochi. The houses are buuit close to the ocean, and the cliff is right behind the houses. There is no appropriate place to build a "shelter tower".

設計や地質調査費などとして２０１３年度の当初予算案に約６千万円を計上する。

The prefectural government will submit 60 million yen (about US$644,000) in the fiscal 2013 budget plan for design and geological survey.

シェルターはこの地区の崖に、直径約３メートルの横穴を掘る形状。入り口に２重の止水扉を設けるほか、奥には垂直の縦穴も掘削し、数十メートル上の山に逃げられるように、らせん階段を設置する予定。

A tunnel with the diameter of 3 meters will be dug into the cliff in the district. The entrance to the tunnel will have double-door that will stop the sea water. In the back, a vertical shaft will be dug, so that the evacuees are able to escape to the mountain top several tens of meters higher.

Here's the visual:

According to the Kochi resident above, there was no vertical shaft in the original plan. He suspects that was added as an excuse after the initial idea was ridiculed. The Kochi government thinks elderly residents (over 40% of this particular district) can climb up a spiral staircase for the height of a 10-story building.

Nikkei Shinbun gushes that this shelter and many others like this along the steep coastline of Kochi Prefecture will each protect 100 residents for 24 hours. The tower is expected to cost 200 million yen (US$2.1 million)

24 hours? One day? Don't they know that a help didn't come to many of the disaster affected areas after March 11, 2011? It took days. In many locations, it never came. Nankai Trough Quake is estimated to be Magnitude 9.1. And they think sheltering residents for 24 hours is enough.

So what are other obvious problems?

• They think they can close the double door and the tsunami won't come in. Fine. Why do they think it can open again? Tsunami debris anyone?

• Why do they assume the vertical shaft would remain intact after a mega earthquake like the one they are anticipating? For that matter, why do they assume the cliff will survive the quake and tsunami?

• Water-tight means air-tight. Any plans for oxygen tanks?

and

• Who is going to close the double door, when, no doubt, there are still people trying to get in?

More than anything, the human instinct when a tsunami is coming is to run to the higher ground. That's the only thing that worked in March 11, 2011 tsunami. There were stories of farmers and fishermen in their 80s who ran so fast that they were amazed at themselves. Instead, the Kochi government wants the residents to go underground, to a location practically on the sea level.

It is not just human instinct. When the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake hit, animals headed uphill. Humans who followed the animals survived the tsunami.

The idiotic governor who came up with this brilliant idea is Mr. Masanao Ozaki, another Tokyo university graduate and former career bureaucrat from the central government, from the Finance Ministry. A 45-year-old punk who won the second term of governorship in November 2011 because there was no other candidate. Well, the above Kochi resident says Kochi people deserve what they will get, for having selected this guy by default.

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Follow Your Government's Instruction and You'll Be OK, Says the Government

First, the Japanese government who is losing credibility by the day, if not by the hour, among the Japanese population and the world at large over its (non-)handling of the nuclear and radiation crisis.

The Ministry of Education and Science has just created a new booklet for elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools to be used in the new semester starting in September to teach children about "radiation", and what to do in a nuclear disaster like the one they've been having since March 11.

So let's take a look. What are the children supposed to do in the post-Fukushima age? Here's from Asahi Shinbun (3:02AM JST 8/14/2011) as to why this booklet has been created:

• To give children the basic understanding of radiation

• To prevent bullying of children from Fukushima in their new schools outside Fukushima [for those children lucky enough to get out of Fukushima]

• To teach that radiation is emitted from radioactive materials like uranium, and that we may be exposed to radiation from natural sources as well as in medical treatments anyway

• To teach them the effect of radiation in different dosage

• To teach them that radiation is not contagious

• To teach them to pay close attention to the announcements by the national government and municipal governments in the event of a nuclear accident and evacuate accordingly.

About the last point, many people did just that. They followed the government instruction on evacuation and ended up going where the radioactive plume went - north and northwest, then change direction and headed south from there. The government instruction, assisted by the nuclear experts back in March, was to go as far away from the plant, in any direction, as the strength of radiation decreases with the distance. What they forgot to tell the populace is that it was not a nuclear bomb that exploded in a flash but a broken nuclear reactor releasing a tremendous amount of radioactive nuclides in a plume.

Anecdotes of children from Fukushima being bullied were reported back in April and May, and the media made much of them. Whether they were true or another "baseless rumor" from the government, I do not know.

The booklet continues the government's position to confuse "radiation" with "radioactive nuclides", making it appear as if radioactive nuclides that exist in nature are no different from the man-made radioactive nuclides. (That will be another post.) I'm pretty positive that the booklet will have the illustration of the different level of radiation from different sources, rendering everything into numbers in microsievert and millisievert.

And here's the US government, telling farm supply stores, gun shops, military surplus stores and even hotels and motels to watch out for domestic "terrorists". The FBI brochures ask proprietors, clerks and others to watch out for "potential indicators" of terrorism. In the brochure "handed out to surplus stores by agents of the FBI in Denver in recent days", those "potential indicators" include, among other seemingly legitimate concerns:

• Insist on paying with cash

• Significantly alter appearances from visit to visit (haircolor, beard, dress)

• Have missing fingers/hand, strange odors, bright stains on clothes

• Make bulk purchase of the following items:
  Weatherproofed ammunition and match containers
  Meals Ready to Eat
  Night vision devices, night flashlights
  

Cash is now a terrorist tool. Flashlight, too.

Never mind that, as the linked article points out, another branch of the same government, FEMA, tells citizens to store up on flashlights and matches in a weatherproof containers and ready-to-eat foods as part of disaster preparedness. So you go to a surplus supply store to stock up on these essential disaster preparedness items as recommended by FEMA, and you may become a "terrorist" according to FBI. Catch 22.

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