Wednesday, August 17, 2011

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.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fucking bastards, the USA was up to the same tricks as the Jap government, lie lie and leave people high and dry !..

Anonymous said...

I was in Tokyo at the time. The Embassy sent around regular emails to US citizens with advice and news. You didn't have to be much of a detective to see they were holding information back. We got other information though other US gov channels that when combined with all the rest of the info we could find screamed "get out now"! However, I didn't grab my family and head to the Haneda airport until Monday, 14 March after reactor #3 blew up. We got out about 30 hrs later to Korea. I took a lot of heat from colleagues for acting on incomplete information, but I have no regrets; my family comes first. In times like that, no government will tell you the whole truth because their motivation is not your motivation. People have to think and act for themselves.

This blog is great! Keep it up!

FigNewton said...

Interesting timing on this book. The 'fly-jin' who worked at Goldman were just 'released' last week. From what I understand, they did get a severance package. This is from my sources inside the industry, which means it's a baseless rumor that's true.

I do know firsthand that anyone who fled without manager approval received no bonus. I know; Cry me a river. But that's a big hit for someone in the industry.

And as for flying execs in to rally the troops. That happened at lot of places. Business as usual was the mantra. Which seemed strange at the time since some countries were evacuating their citizens.

The business as usual mentality, to me, showed how ill-prepared Japan is in an emergency. No ability to make decisions in order to change course. This works fine when things are good. It's damaging when life turns bad.

Viola said...

Don't believe any government in the world would behave in a different manner from what you see now in Japan or what you can read here about the US! There's simply no "master-plan" in case a nuclear catastrophy happens...
Thanks to statistics, nuclear regulatories don't even try to think about the unthinkable. Yes, of course, they make their calculations - but as soon as the probability is low, it's profit before safety.
I'm rather astonished that there were plans to evacuate at all, considering the economic impacts.

Doyu Shonin said...

>sake of alliance

... but of course. Abstract considerations come first when everything is based on abstractions (such as the yen or dollar). It was yet another missed opportunity to change the course of history for the better, by saying to Japan: "We're getting our people out and you should do do so too, and we'll help." But it has long not been about the people.

Anonymous said...

The Americans did evacuate some 10,000 family members of the military and State Department from Japan in March. And then the US reversed the decision and directed a return to Japan a few weeks later. On what grounds did the US decide to bring 10,000 women and children back to Japan? Were radiation tests of the food chain, air and soil samples on US bases in Japan made? By what organization? Shouldn't these tests be made available to the US public? The US is conducting a body radiation survey of all 60,000 American military personnel and their families in Japan, based on models from the Nevada nuclear test experience on US military veterans. It is only a matter of time before concerned Americans and Congress demands to know the results of radiation tests made by the US government, which lead to a decision to return so many evacuated families to Japan.

Anonymous said...

that was the advantage for me to be french, the government recommended us to leave if we did not 100% need to stay, already on the 13th of March. Advantage of being small sometime. French could leave without bothering the Japanese too much!!! If US would have left, sure it would be on another scale of reaction and I can see that it could have started a panic. Not sure though. But I left on my own after reading about black rains and fallouts, not because the government suggested to do so. The American could have left on their own, they must take responsibilities for themself, as we did. They only have their self to blame. But they could sue their government if they have good stats about health impairmenet caused by Fukushima radionuclides. Their governmenet had the responsibility to warn them, but failed to it and now lives in shame. Why is the republican party not doing its job to take action against the democrate when they fail? Anyway, this is another topic.

Anonymous said...

10 million Japanese need to be evacuated NOW! Children especially need to leave from Tokyo north ASAP.

Anonymous said...

When the public objects to a nuclear plant being constructed, the government and nuke agencies scoff and call them ignorant and say "Don't worry, every safety feature and detail has been addressed" and to calm the public, much attention is given to evacuation procedures in place and plans for the distribution of iodide pills from the hands of the nuke agency who will make sure everything is handled correctly in the event of a nuclear accident.

Then a nuclear emergency happens and evacuation procedures and iodide pills are not implemented because the nuclear agency and the government protecting it does not want the public to know about it. I watched an interview with a Chernobyl official who said they had originally designed evacuation procedures but never told the public about it or held practice drills because they didn't want them to 'panic'. At that stage the accurate word would have been 'object'. The Soviet official does not admit that they also did no want to accept responsibility for all the death and destruction.

The SPEEDI system in Japan was probably bragged about like this 'Don't worry, we have elaborate computer models that will help us make decisions in under a minute if a crisis should occur...a crisis that is impossible and will never occur. We are just so safety minded that we built this system knowing we'd never need it' I wish they had told us then that they would never use the SPEEDI system because if it was ever needed, they believe people would 'panic'. I mean, did the idea that the public would panic only occur to them after March 11 or have they looked at say...Chernobyl or the other accidents they lie about?

But when the emergency happens, they did not release the SPEEDI data saying 'we didn't want to' which I take to mean that they did not want the public to panic and they don't want to accept responsibility.

So, in keeping with unofficial nuclear emergency 'policy', the US would not evacuate people because - well they didn't want people to 'panic' and I believe Japan and the US also didn't want the nuclear industry to have to accept responsibility for destroying quality of life, if not killing people outright.

So the next time some nuclear agency/government combination wants to build a nuclear plant and the public protests, I think an honest argument might be 'No, we don't want you to build it because it's not as safe as you say it is, you aren't as careful as you say you are, you can't handle any crisis you create and you won't evacuate or distribute iodide when it becomes necessary because 'people would panic'

Anonymous said...

Good point anon@ 7.57pm. Also, when another emergency happens (as it inevitably will), the precedent has now been set for governments not to evacuate their citizens..... don't want to jeopardise those business arrangements now.

Anonymous said...

The decision to return Women and Children to Japan is a criminal
act as great as any act of Genocide.

The ones who will die, should drag Maher, Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates and Obama in on nuremberg violations for this

Anonymous said...

Oh brother.

I remember such overdone hysteria about the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl too.

It's astounding how low the death toll ended up being. 9 children were found to have died from radioactive iodine, tragic, but not an epic disaster. No leukemias at all tracable to it.

Lessons: We have a greater tolerance for environmental radiation than we thought. Ingested radiation is still very bad, so careful about radioactive milk and mushrooms.

We overestimated the dangers from strontium by far, and underestimated the dangers from iodine isotopes by a bit.

Anonymous said...

I recall being chastised for leaving March 14th. Called every name in the book. I knew we were in danger. My head was not in the sand.....

Anonymous said...

There are radioactive-rain warnings in Tokyo local TV but not such a thing in Osaka. Since radioactive-rain has already reached Nagoya, I am sure it can reach Osaka too, if it hasn't (specially when typhoons blow winds all over the place). Does anybody know how to keep a track on radioactive rain based here in Osaka?

Anybody in Osaka interested to keep a blog for foreign residents here concerning these matters and maybe we can send warnings to our mobile phones for emergencies?

We also need to share information on food and I do have access to food storages to test brands and check were original products come from. It is difficult though to keep a track with the fish (sticking to salmon from Norway...I guess they are pretty honest about it).

Radioactive meat has reached Osaka and it is difficult to keep a track since they will not tell you what do they feed the cows with, but there are safe providers known to the family that can also be discussed.

Of course ... someone could run another blog for Tokyo and share information in common.

Anonymous said...

.

@ Advantage of being ... French could leave without bothering the Japanese too much!!!

? Proud to be French A R E V A - the killer behind all this fuku. # French nuke industry is as sleazy as any; AREVA / fmr COGEMA exposee; sorry- french only documentary how over 200 uranium mine leftovers were spread on road/stadium/park base… mas0nic mafiosi integration at best www. youtube .com/watch?v=oHvnmcaOnCU

This A R E V A - military leftover Plutonium dirt was stuffed into Fukushima - and all broken (meltin?) stopped 36 japanese reactors...
Exposee by finn whistleblower interview - has now english subtitles; please distribute:
A THEORY OF FUKUSHIMA (English subtitles turn on CC) by AwakenFinland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzwBDlLgnm8

See more facts from Arto
In english http://wp.me/pwIAV-19

.

Anonymous said...

@ Oh brother. I remember such overdone hysteria about the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl too.

LOL.

Now the facts: At LEAST Million dead, tens millions sick - and counting.

Of course, peanuts compared to the 1950-1963 atmospheric nuke blasts, all 2700 or more.

Nukelubed dog never stops, does he? U must bark 24/7 or the 2500$ oligarchy's allowance dries up...

Bruce Hayden said...

That troll has been here on and off since the beginning. His/her lies about Chernobyl would be hilarious if they were not so sad. They should train them to write better. This one is still a Cub Scout. Some people will do anything for money.

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous said... (see fukushima-i-nuke-plant-worker-no-steam)
"Steam gushing out of cracks on the ground. The area is foggy with steam, and the workers evacuated temporarily. Some kind of reaction may be occurring underground."
And the some: the molten plutonium enriched mass will xplode as it hits the water table. If other more or less thousands tons masses decide to join in the jubilee, it would create an 10.000 ton earth shattering gigaplutobomb.
Japan no more.
The day after; US coast builds 20 mile tsunami?"

When such gigablast happens, it will create a wall of water hundreds of meters high as Japan sinks. Justabout every world's seaside city will drown during the following 2 weeks as the water travels around, mediterranean baltic etc included (though much less so). Earth will loose its balance; what will that cause, one can only imagine...

Anonymous said...

US gov’t was considering plan to evacuate all 90,000 citizens living in Tokyo — US knew fuel had melted early on via Global Hawk data

Check out the comments for an update on maher!

http://enenews.com/book-govt-considering-plan-evacuate-all-90000-citizens-living-tokyo-knew-fuel-melted-early-global-hawk-data

Anonymous said...

i leave ~500 miles from Chernobyl, and was ~ 3 years old then, by my 20's several girlfriends of mine had brain-cancer, underwent severe procedures and treatments. My mum was a nurse back then at a village hospital, she treated several people who worked on the field in the morning after the explosion for skin problems caused by the fallout.
I had a pair of aunt/uncle who were in a plain from Moscow on a flight above Ukraine on the morning after - both died from brain-cancer in 3 and 9 years.
So whoever says the implications of Chernobyl are pure hysteria, has no idea about the consequences.

Anonymous said...

@ So whoever says the implications of Chernobyl are pure hysteria, has no idea about the consequences.

---> When youre being Paid, you write whatever. Also called "journalism". Or prostitution.
Facty linky also about who pays whom: http://wp.me/pwIAV-19

Anonymous said...

@ So whoever says the implications of Chernobyl are pure hysteria, has no idea about the consequences.

---> When youre being Paid, you write whatever. Also called "journalism". Or prostitution.
Facty linky also about who pays whom: http://wp.me/pwIAV-19

Well Organized Nukelube Criminals: This was followed by 73 spam messages.

len said...

They can hide a lot of things but they cannot hide radiation sickness when the number of victims will be greater than the number of available carers. Given the character of radiation sickness it will be interesting to see how the cover up works.

Anonymous said...

@ interesting to see how the cover up

six feet under? Interestin. huh.

"move on folks, nothin to see here" say lubed off-i-cia-ls

Globally Publicised Papal proplem - overpopulation - has at last achieved its goal: Ted Turner: "500 million worker (protest) ants would be sufficient"

Anonymous said...

I know it's early for publication, but a quick search for Maher's book brings up this type on
the search page,

"Japan decides against testing all cattle sold for human consumption for BSE.(Japanese Food Safety Commission)(Bovine spongiform encephalopathy):"
http://www.amazon.com/consumption-Japanese-Commission-spongiform-encephalopathy/dp/B00084APS0/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313679969&sr=1-2

The "alliance" is multifaceted, and you are fodder for their political machines.

"The business as usual mentality, to me, showed how ill-prepared Japan is in an emergency. No ability to make decisions in order to change course."
The picture is considerably darker than that, FigNewton. Is BSE really any less deadly than radiation?

"I'm rather astonished that there were plans to evacuate at all, considering the economic impacts."
This tells us the real PR effort is not aimed at commenters on this site, but rather at those 'hold-outs' in the State Dept. Doubtless, 'liberals', "lefties", ..

"On what grounds did the US decide to bring 10,000 women and children back to Japan?"

And on what grounds did those people comply and remain silent?

[Detarame]

"I watched an interview with a Chernobyl official who said they had originally designed evacuation procedures but never told the public about it or held practice drills because they didn't want them to 'panic'."

Reading Grigori Medvedev's book on Chernobyl, he recounts how when the reactor began its series of explosions, people fishing nearby did not take special notice of the sounds of the explosions as the reactor routinely vented gas from the containment. Those would be radioactive gases. And the sound of those routine ventings was like an explosion.

"Nukelubed dog never stops, does he? U must bark 24/7 or the 2500$ oligarchy's allowance dries up..."
Cut him some slack, he's got to build his "STACKS" daily. Focus on the stacks!
lol

"Facty linky also about who pays whom:", is it?

Anonymous said...

www.overpopulationisamyth.com and these illneses, deaths help no one, not even the few who feel protected - they may have "blue blod" but that won't keep them healty

Anonymous said...

Worldwide anarchy will lead to chaos, starvation, mob rule, local warlords... but it will also lead to regional sustainability and self-sufficienty. Don't we have chaos now? I think the alternative to government/corporate dictatorship is looking better and better all the time. When your family, friends, and neighbours start thinking the same thing, and the message goes viral internationally, it will be time to act.

Anonymous said...

Anyone who wants to deny the Fukushima shit as hysteria ?get in the ring motherfucker, I BUST YOUR FUCKING HEAD

nader paul kucinich gravel mckinney said...

Our IR drones knew from the start
the little people were expendable
must not embarrass the VIP's.

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