nuclear-news

No records kept of Japan’s nuclear disaster crisis response!

“Perhaps there were some goings on that the participants did not feel comfortable being made public,” 

Japan Task Force Kept No Records Of Nuclear Crisis Response, Planet Ark, 25-Jan-12,  JAPAN by Yoko Kubota and Shinichi Saoshiro Japan’s energy minister admitted on Tuesday that no records were kept of top level discussions in the critical early days on how to respond to the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 25 years.

The admission, and apology, by Trade Minister Yukio Edano comes in the
face of widespread debate over the government’s response to the
Fukushima nuclear crisis triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami
last March.

“It is inconceivable that there were no records kept. It may have been
difficult to keep official logs during the extreme confusion after the
crisis, but they could have taken simple memos,” said Kenji Sumita, an
emeritus professor at Osaka University who specializes in nuclear
engineering.

“Perhaps there were some goings on that the participants did not feel
comfortable being made public,” he said.

A government task force was set up by then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan to
deal with the nuclear disaster. Its failure to keep records emerged
after public broadcaster NHK sought details of its discussions.

NHK said it found only one-page logs that listed the agenda items
discussed at each meeting.

Several panels are investigating how the government handled the crisis.

Trade Minister Edano, who was the top government spokesman when the
Fukushima disaster struck and now holds the energy portfolio,
apologized for the lapse and said officials would try to cobble
together a record of the meetings….
Japan, in middle of its largest reconstruction effort since the end of
World War Two, has said that the catastrophe at Fukushima’s Daiichi
plant could take four decades to clean up….
http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/64512

January 26, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties