nuclear-news

Records not kept by 5 Japanese nuclear disaster committees

Five Japan committees keep no disaster records Terra Daily Tokyo (AFP) Jan 27, 2012 Five government teams dealing with Japan’s tsunami and nuclear catastrophes kept no detailed records, an official said Friday, adding to a growing picture of chaos in Tokyo’s disaster response…

Now the government has admitted having no minutes from a further four emergency committees, an admission likely to worsen the view of
Tokyo’s response to the world’s worst nuclear accident since
Chernobyl. Earlier this week the government said the nuclear disaster
task force that ordered tens of thousands of evacuations had no
written record of its decision-making process — an essential
component of disaster management.

The five emergency bodies include the main disaster headquarters and
the disaster victims assistance team, as well as the nuclear disaster
task force, which was headed by then Prime Minister Naoto Kan and
included all of his ministers.

These three committees failed to keep even brief summaries of their
meetings, while two other task forces have only partial summaries.

Such records are usually thought of as essential for careful and
coherent planning to mitigate the impact of future disasters.

Several other emergency committees kept only summaries of their
meetings, leaving blanks in the record of how top officials addressed
the aftermath of the tsunami and the atomic accident it spawned at
Fukushima as reactors went into meltdown, spewing radiation over a
wide area….. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Five_Japan_committees_keep_no_disaster_records_999.html

January 29, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties