Fukushima Management and Government Performance

tsutsuji

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/genpatsu-.../2050_map.html It has been found that in March last year the ministry of education and science did not publicly release a map prepared by the US government that showed that the radiations were spreading in the north-west direction. The map was created by aircraft from 17 to 19 March. For example, it showed the locations above 125 microsievert/hour in red and one could understand at the first glance how radiations were distributed. The map was offered to the Japanese ministry of foreign affairs by the US department of energy on 20 March and it was immediately transmitted to the ministry of education and science and to the NISA. However, the ministry of education of science and the NISA did not release it publicly, nor did they transmit the informations to the Prime Minister office or to the concerned government agencies. The data were publicly released by the US government on its website 3 days later on 23 March.

The vice head of the ministry of education and science's Science and Technology Policy Bureau, Mr Watanabe, says for example: "We thought the public release had to be done by the US government. At that time, we performed a radiation survey at 180 locations and released the results", and believes that there was no problem in their response. The NISA's Tetsuya Yamamoto says: "At that time, an e-mail from the foreign ministry came to our foreign relation room. It was transmitted to the radiation group, but we are presently investigating to understand why it was not publicly released. Thinking about it now, I think it should have been released. Not appropriately offer information is truly regrettable, and we want to pay efforts to respond to the results of the cabinet investigation's results etc.".

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311dis...AJ201206180048 "The first hint that the science ministry and NISA had obtained the radiation maps from the Energy Department came in late October"
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311dis...AJ201206190064 "It remains unclear if the members were even aware that a radiation map with U.S. data was posted on a whiteboard in the room."

zapperzero

This is incredible. Why such an urge to manufacture excuses?

tsutsuji

Probably they were afraid to be blamed for creating a panic, like Koichiro Nakamura:

Ex-skf's source, http://www.news-postseven.com/archiv...320_15548.html has the following anonymous quote: 「菅首相と枝野官房長官は、中村審議官が国民に不安を与えたと問題視し、もう会見させるなといってきた」（経産省幹部）

"Considering that inspector Nakamura had brought a feeling of insecurity to the citizens, Prime Minister Kan and Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano viewed this as a problem, and said 'don't do press conferences any longer'" (a ministry of Economy and Industry executive)

Here is the New York Times' analysis (2012-06-19) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/wo...f=atomicenergy : "The failure is being seen by critics in Japan as another example of the government’s early attempts to play down the severity of the accident by withholding damaging information."

Not telling the citizens is one thing. But why not transmit the data to the Prime Minister's office, then ? Some kind of burying one's head in the sand like an ostrich ? Or were they afraid to rely on US data, out of fear that they might be inaccurate ?

Answers to these questions might be provided in the forthcoming final version of the cabinet investigation report.

zapperzero

I think this goes here:

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311dis...AJ201208060093

TEPCO subcontractors played all sorts of games with their employees' dosimeters.