Wednesday, September 7, 2011

TEPCO's Extreme Blackout

All you can read is about 10 or so lines, according to Tokyo Shinbun citing Kyodo News (9/7/2011).

TEPCO submitted the 12-page document as requested by a Lower House committee concerning the emergency operation procedure at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

Following the "request" (it was a formal request) from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to pay close attention to the PP (Physical Protection), TEPCO blacked out almost all of the information, resulting in the document as you see in the picture.

According to TEPCO's Matsumoto, it was part of the document that was blacked. I suppose 99% is still considered "part".

Needless to say, the committee chairman is not very happy, and requested that TEPCO re-submit the document.

The committee requested the information on emergency procedure from TEPCO, as the allegation that manually stopping the IC (emergency cooling system) may have caused the meltdown in Reactor 1, blaming the worker.

I personally don't buy that allegation, particularly when they say it was a "mistake by the worker". (The committee chairman should have asked for the "true" manual...)

You can view the TBS news and see the completeness of the blackout by TEPCO.



22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't have a proper news blackout without documents like that. In a sane world an reply like this would be answered by a revocation of all plant operating licenses and arrest of top officials. How would Japanese tax officials deal with a company that filled out their tax forms like this?

Anonymous said...

Is the Lower House representative of People of Japan? If so, this is an insult.
In a democraty, the law makes testimony in front of representatives compulsory. Or should we understand there is no justice to make these Tepco people respect the law?

Anonymous said...

What does "physical protection" mean ?

Anonymous said...

You cant expect TEPCO and their buddies the Government to behave properly unless people push them to do it.

They have the money machine working for them not for people interests so there is no way for them to shut it off.

Laws do not protect people only the rich eagles.

Everything else are considered gossip news, not important at all.

The real responsability falls into the nations citizens not their leaders, since they are too spoiled by an educated people.

Anonymous said...

uneducated I meant...

Anonymous said...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110908a4.html

Corruption. Also manipulation of public opinion and regulators. Japan inc. doesn't seem like such a nice place anymore, to me.

Anonymous said...

here is a question for anyone living in Japan, please take your time for answering. In regard of all those problems with foods, you are all used to take foods from west Japan especially from Kyushu, Shikoku, Chugoku or even Hyogo prefecture. In other Osaka-Kyoto area, they don't inform about food origins, they don't even testing foods, do you think it is safe to eat foods originated from other those part of kansai or it is better to stay on guards and only be confident with extrem west of japan foods ? I heard many times Co-op from kansai area (except hyogo but especially osaka and kyoto) try to secretly sell food items from tohoku or kanto (fukushima, miyagi, ibaraki, tochigi, and southern part of kanto), is it real ? i mean why don't they simply use food items from their own region ? Is it just because of money ? because foods from tohoku or kanto area are way more cheaper ? please enlight me on the reasons.

(sorry for double post, I just want be sure anyone can see my question)

Anonymous said...

@ Anonymous 5:07
According to my experience in Kyoto, I can see they OPENLY try to sell food from Tohoku. In the supermarkets sometime certain type of fruit or vegetables are ONLY from those areas. Last time I went, there were peaches and cucumbers only from Fukushima, same story for the Ibaraki's cabbage; some time ago it was the turn of Fukushima peas...However I can still find fruits and vegetables from Kyushu or locally grown, it just takes much more time searching for them around the shops.
The meat is labeled just as "national" so no idea of where is from, I was used to ask to the staff or buy that from Australia, now I buy it through websites.

They do some test as I was sent a list of food which resulted highly contaminated tested by Kyoto local government BEFORE going into the market (thanks God), and it was my kid's school Principal to send it to me, after my request.

Tohoku vegetables and fruits are usually cheaper, my friend (mother of three) always happily buys them, she keeps telling me that Kansai people are not worried and that they don't care (I showed her this and other websites last day, I hope she will get more aware of the risks). In fact all the local people I try to speak about it seem not to care, or to believe that what is sold is safe, or that "in Kansai there is not problem". Somebody also believes that it is good to buy that food in order to help Tohoku. So "cheap and good deed" are the main ingredients I suppose.
However, the school told me that also other mothers were concerned about school lunches...

Now, I said to the school that sadly I am going to leave Japan because I don't feel it is safe anymore...they told me not to tell other mothers that reason as it could scare them. Ahah it's incredible, they are scared that mothers could be scared by ME!!! Whereas they are not scared at all about what they see and what is happening with food in Japan...isn't it ironic?

Anonymous said...

i see, i thank you for your testimony =) yeah indeed i had a conversation about it with a japanese friend of mine (but she lives in kanto area) she told me same things about tohoku fruits and vegetables, she also told kansai isn't really a powerful agricultural zones, that's why they need imports but tohoku vegetables are cheaper. So they used them only for moneys... i also heard many parents in kyoto or in osaka area worried about the school meals and they try as much as they can to provide safe foods to their children and make pressure on schools for this (some local foods but as it is much difficult to get them, far west japan's foods). As you are from Kyoto have you heard about this conference in Kyoto city held by the jounalist Kinoshita Kouta ? Apparently they talked about the food safety for children in it. Food problems is indeed a big issue in kansai..

Anonymous said...

@anon 7:45am
Curious to know which foods precisely were found to be highly contaminated by the Kyoto authorities. Could you possibly share more details?

This seems to imply that local government insiders have access to information on food contamination levels that is being withheld from the general public.

Not at all surprising, if true, and not at all reassuring. I wonder how widespread the phenomenon is around the country.

Anonymous said...

I think the craze for eating contaminated food fits with a form of mania.

Anonymous said...

anon: 9:14am, well i think he is mainly referring about tohoku products such as vegetable or fruits who were found highly contaminated... It seems to be fluent to fall on those foods even on kansai because it is way more cheaper than any safe products... ironically, although it's kansai, it's quite hard to find local products there except maybe for hyogo

Anonymous said...

There's only a thing to do to be safe and sound. Get a geiger counter and take with you wherever you go to check things.

Anonymous said...

great move with the song video,applause

Anonymous said...

@SEPTEMBER, 8 2011 7:45 AM you're the devil, you're the devil

Anonymous said...

"In a sane world a reply like this would be answered by a revocation of all plant operating licenses and arrest of top officials."

A comforting thought.

Anonymous said...

TEPCO management are all liars.
They conspired to deceive the Japanese people.
TEPCO has put millions of citizens at risk.
They have poisoned the Northern Hemisphere.
The Government has supported TEPCO.
They need to go to jail.
It's the RIGHT thing to do....

Anonymous said...

Excellllllennnt....Amusing... ... .. .. .What you can not see.. .. .. . will not HARM YOU..... ..[or not].. .. .. ................word for word................A fortiori...........322

Anonymous said...

@Anon 9:14

I had the same thought as yours about information witheld because I could not find information for Kyoto at the time. However, what she sent me was the list reported in Kyoto city's website, which had escaped me.

As they state on the website, they use to check only products coming from northeast Japan (only samples I guess?), and the list reports the results.

Here is the link:
http://www.city.kyoto.lg.jp/hokenfukushi/page/0000102518.html

Anonymous said...

@Anon 7:59
Thank you for the link.

(Beef from Shimane at over 100Bq of cesium as measured in August!!?? I had been reasonably comfortable drinking milk from Shimane but now wonder.)

I have not been able to find a similar resource on the Tokyo Met. Gov. website. Does anyone one know of one?
Anon 9:14

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

@anon 5:57AM, there is one for Tokyo, I think, and some Special Wards do their own testing. I'll try to locate.

Anonymous said...

Great blog...keep it going everyone. I hope it helps but it will take time for all to learn how things are going to be changing. So much research to do in order to find out what to do about effects of radiation - it will skip generations...but will show itself later, as the rabbits without ears. Read this site to know what is being reported by people to doctors. https://sites.google.com/site/fukushimareport/

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