4 ms·

This is giving too much credit to the government who handled almost every aspect the worst way possible: - the plant had designs flaws and shortcuts taken that

by hrktb 7y ago

This is giving too much credit to the government who handled almost every aspect the worst way possible: - the plant had designs flaws and shortcuts taken that worsened the effect of the tsunami - government media (NHK) heavily downplayed the issue while the reactor was melting, independent journalists got shutdown, actual information only leaked through anonymous sources - even after the anonymous info was proven true, there were still active campaigns to downplay the events and just put a seal on any further information leak - contaminated soil and debris got shipped around the country with vibrant "solidarity above all" chants to shutdown critics - media campaign were launched to eat Fukushima fruits and vegetable - yakuza got involved in sourcing the contractors that do the cleanup - health damage is/was massively downplayed to remove any institutional responsibility I know a lot of that is just "business as usual", but if we're asking if former residents of Fukushima are wrong to distrust the government, I think there's a lot to take into account.

mikekchar 7y ago
> - government media (NHK) heavily downplayed the issue while the reactor was melting, independent journalists got shutdown, actual information only leaked through anonymous sources I'm just going to pick this one thing because I was in Japan at the time and watched the NHK broadcasts. The thing I have always found frustrating is that I believe the information reported by the western media was wrong. At the time NHK (and every channel, actually) literally turned their entire schedule into detailed descriptions of what was going on at Fukushima. In fact, advertising on the commercial channels was dominated by AC Japan [1] because it was considered unseemly to advertise during these presentations. Specifically I remember seeing models showing how the reactors worked and I remember TEPCO officials saying, "The data is consistent with a meltdown, but we can not confirm that at this time". This was somehow, incredibly, reported as "There has not been a meltdown" by the western media. I kept telling expats in the area that the information they were getting in Western media was wrong, but nobody would listen to me. Everyone I spoke to in Japanese understood extremely well what the situation was. Everyone I spoke to in English was panicking because the information they were getting was absolutely wonky. I eventually looked into it and almost all of the reports for the western media was coming from a group of reporters working for Reuters. I do not believe they are Reuters staff, but were working on contract. These reports were picked up by everybody and published without changes. I wish I'd made better notes because now so long after the fact, it's hard to show what happened. However, if you go into the old revisions on Wikipedia, you can see for yourself. At the time, the page was being updated several times a day with links to new articles being written. Check the bylines on those articles and you will see that they are all written by the same people. The IAEA used to have a page with all of the statements from TEPCO (in Japanese). You could, at the time, cross reference those with the news releases out of Reuters and show that the Reuters news releases were incorrect. I have not been able to find that page for about 5 years now, which is really frustrating. It will probably seem incredibly implausible to you, as I know you are very confident of what you are saying. However, I think if you actually talk to most Japanese people, they do not doubt the government with respect to the way Fukushima was handled the way you say they do. Or at least that is my experience. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Council_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Council_Japan
- hrktb 7y ago
  Thanks for the precisions. I thought I clearly remembered rumours of meltdown being publicly denied, and some sources are in line with that: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/20171226/1756_meltdown.html https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/20171226/1756... Now there was a lot of reporting, and I wouldn't be surprised if some Tepco employees would be more frank and bring more information. I followed the official news only for the first week or two, and switched to different sources afterward so it might have been another tone as well after that. PS: about the oversee reporting, the most I was hearing of were France and US news, and they were so clearly biased, some to extreme alarmism, and some were completely damage controlling the impact on their internal nuclear policy. I am with you on the general impression that the info was of very low quality all over the board internationally, while Japanese research groups had very clear and explicit reports day by day, week by week on what is going on and where.
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    That article is accurate to what I remember. I specifically remember that they did not say one way or the other until they had proof, which was about 2 months later. I wish I remember exactly the Japanese phrase that they were using. I should have written it down.

by hrktb 7y ago

mikekchar 7y ago

> - government media (NHK) heavily downplayed the issue while the reactor was melting, independent journalists got shutdown, actual information only leaked through anonymous sources I'm just going to pick this one thing because I was in Japan at the time and watched the NHK broadcasts. The thing I have always found frustrating is that I believe the information reported by the western media was wrong. At the time NHK (and every channel, actually) literally turned their entire schedule into detailed descriptions of what was going on at Fukushima. In fact, advertising on the commercial channels was dominated by AC Japan [1] because it was considered unseemly to advertise during these presentations. Specifically I remember seeing models showing how the reactors worked and I remember TEPCO officials saying, "The data is consistent with a meltdown, but we can not confirm that at this time". This was somehow, incredibly, reported as "There has not been a meltdown" by the western media. I kept telling expats in the area that the information they were getting in Western media was wrong, but nobody would listen to me. Everyone I spoke to in Japanese understood extremely well what the situation was. Everyone I spoke to in English was panicking because the information they were getting was absolutely wonky. I eventually looked into it and almost all of the reports for the western media was coming from a group of reporters working for Reuters. I do not believe they are Reuters staff, but were working on contract. These reports were picked up by everybody and published without changes. I wish I'd made better notes because now so long after the fact, it's hard to show what happened. However, if you go into the old revisions on Wikipedia, you can see for yourself. At the time, the page was being updated several times a day with links to new articles being written. Check the bylines on those articles and you will see that they are all written by the same people. The IAEA used to have a page with all of the statements from TEPCO (in Japanese). You could, at the time, cross reference those with the news releases out of Reuters and show that the Reuters news releases were incorrect. I have not been able to find that page for about 5 years now, which is really frustrating. It will probably seem incredibly implausible to you, as I know you are very confident of what you are saying. However, I think if you actually talk to most Japanese people, they do not doubt the government with respect to the way Fukushima was handled the way you say they do. Or at least that is my experience. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Council_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Council_Japan

hrktb 7y ago
Thanks for the precisions. I thought I clearly remembered rumours of meltdown being publicly denied, and some sources are in line with that: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/20171226/1756_meltdown.html https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-fukushima/20171226/1756... Now there was a lot of reporting, and I wouldn't be surprised if some Tepco employees would be more frank and bring more information. I followed the official news only for the first week or two, and switched to different sources afterward so it might have been another tone as well after that. PS: about the oversee reporting, the most I was hearing of were France and US news, and they were so clearly biased, some to extreme alarmism, and some were completely damage controlling the impact on their internal nuclear policy. I am with you on the general impression that the info was of very low quality all over the board internationally, while Japanese research groups had very clear and explicit reports day by day, week by week on what is going on and where.
- mikekchar 7y ago
  That article is accurate to what I remember. I specifically remember that they did not say one way or the other until they had proof, which was about 2 months later. I wish I remember exactly the Japanese phrase that they were using. I should have written it down.