Inquiry Declares Fukushima Crisis a Man-Made Disaster
from New York Times
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: July 5, 2012
Rubble was removed on Thursday from the damaged building for Reactor No. 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
"TOKYO — The nuclear accident at Fukushima was a preventable disaster rooted in government-industry collusion and the worst conformist conventions of Japanese culture, a parliamentary inquiry concluded Thursday.
The report, released by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, challenged some of the main story lines that the government and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant have put forward. Most notably, the report said the plant’s crucial cooling systems might have been damaged in the earthquake on March 11, 2011, not only in the ensuing tsunami. That possibility raises doubts about the safety of all the quake-prone country’s nuclear plants just as they begin to restart after a pause ordered in the wake of the Fukushima crisis.
“It was a profoundly man-made disaster — that could and should have been foreseen and prevented,” said Kiyoshi Kurokawa, the commission’s chairman, in the report’s introduction. “And its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human response.
...
Dr. Kurokawa reserved his most damning language for his criticism of a culture in Japan that suppresses dissent and outside opinion, which he said might have prompted changes to the country’s lax nuclear controls.
“What must be admitted, very painfully, is that this was a disaster ‘Made in Japan,’ ” Dr. Kurokawa said in his introduction to the English version of the report. “Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.” The Japanese version contained a similar criticism.
Shuya Nomura, a commission member and a professor at the Chuo Law School, said the report had tried to “shed light on Japan’s wider structural problems, on the pus that pervades Japanese society.”
Since I was neither raised in Japan nor have ever lived there, I'm in no position to comment on the broader cultural issues raised by this report. Certainly, to my outsider's eye, a widely-held societal value of "sticking with the program" seems to have been -- at least in part -- responsible for the heroic or stoic behavior of the thousands affected by the earthquake & tsunami. After all, didn't see too many pictures of morons carting off Nike sneakers or flat-screen T.V.s from damaged and broken-into stores.
Would be great to hear from any of our Japanese brothers and sisters (and any foreign nationals who live in Japan) to get their perspective on this.
full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/wo...s.html?_r=1&hp
G, R & B
.....OR.....we could talk some more..."
