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Fukushima: Tokyo was on the brink of nuclear catastrophe admits former prime minister

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Mr Nash

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
There's an interesting interview up with Naoto Kan who was Prime Minister of Japan during the earthquake in 2011 discussing some of what was going on when the nuclear plant ran into trouble.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...catastrophe-admits-former-prime-minister.html

Japan's prime minister at the time of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami has revealed that the country came within a “paper-thin margin” of a nuclear disaster requiring the evacuation of 50 million people.

In an interview with The Telegraph to mark the fifth anniversary of the tragedy, Naoto Kan described the panic and disarray at the highest levels of the Japanese government as it fought to control multiple meltdowns at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.

He said he considered evacuating the capital, Tokyo, along with all other areas within 160 miles of the plant, and declaring martial law. “The future existence of Japan as a whole was at stake,” he said. “Something on that scale, an evacuation of 50 million, it would have been like a losing a huge war.”
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Some of the stuff about the ministers that were supposed to be overseeing nuclear energy issues in the country is pretty mind blowing too.
 
S

so1337

Member
Evacuating the entire city would've been complete chaos. I've seen the public transport system very nearly collapse on a snowy day.
 
K

Kama_1082

Banned
Total disaster was averted when seawater was pumped into the reactors, but the plant manager, Masao Yoshida, later said he considered committing hara-kiri, ritual suicide, in despair at the situation.

God damn
 
C

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
He was “very shocked” by the performance of Nobuaki Terasaka, his own government’s key nuclear safety adviser. “We questioned him and he was unable to give clear responses,” he said.

“We asked him – do you know anything about nuclear issues? And he said no, I majored in economics.”
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Between this and the general incompetence of Tepco, it's not hard to see why the situation unfolded the way it did. Really fortunate it wasn't worse.

Can't imagine how evacuating 50 million people would go down, other than "poorly."
 
D

demosthenes

Member
so1337 said:
Evacuating the entire city would've been complete chaos. I've seen the public transport system very nearly collapse when there was even a little bit of snow.
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It wouldn't have happened. They could not evacuate 50 million people. It would be chaos and hundreds of thousands would likely have died.
 
L

lazygecko

Member
Kama_1082 said:
Total disaster was averted when seawater was pumped into the reactors, but the plant manager, Masao Yoshida, later said he considered committing hara-kiri, ritual suicide, in despair at the situation.

God damn
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He disobeyed direct orders from the parent company TEPCO when pumping in the seawater which is what averted the disaster. The guy should pretty much be a national hero considering the circumstances.
 
D

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
chaosblade said:
Between this and the general incompetence of Tepco, it's not hard to see why the situation unfolded the way it did. Really fortunate it wasn't worse.

Can't imagine how evacuating 50 million people would go down, other than "poorly."
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Off topic, but reading that quote makes me think about what what would happen if you asked a lot of the members of the House Science Committee if they knew anything about science.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Grimpadlock said:
What specifically? Tokyo was never evacuated.

Also the largest oversight that Tepco made was not waterproofing the backup generators.
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How close we were alarmingly getting to a total nuclear catastrophe.

The things mentioned in that article that are new discuss what upper level people were doing, freaking out of course with no real course a direction if things come to a head. Evacuating a city like Tokyo of all places is a logistafuck nightmare of epic proportions, and if shit did hit the fan they wouldn't have enough time to do it.
 
A

A-V-B

Member
lazygecko said:
He disobeyed direct orders from the parent company TEPCO when pumping in the seawater which is what averted the disaster. The guy should pretty much be a national hero considering the circumstances.
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If there's something the real world has taught us, it's that the greatest heroes in history often die poor and unknown.
 
G

Grimpadlock

Member
Trojita said:
How close we were alarmingly getting to a total nuclear catastrophe.

The things mentioned in that article that are new discuss what upper level people were doing, freaking out of course with no real course a direction if things come to a head. Evacuating a city like Tokyo of all places is a logistafuck nightmare of epic proportions, and if shit did hit the fan they wouldn't have enough time to do it.
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Yeah. This was the largest risk management nightmare in recent history. Japan's bureaucracy and pretty much every bureaucracy are just not built to prepare quickly for an event of this scale. I don't want to say no one is to blame though; Tepco clearly underprepared.
All in all I just hope many governments, Japan not excluded, learned a lot from 3.11.
 
F

Frozenprince

Banned
My god so many people would have died. The evacuation would be mayhem at a level we really can't even fathom.

Thank god it wasn't worse.
 
G

goomba

Banned
Fukushima should have been the lesson to the world that nuclear plants of it's kind should all be shutdown and decimissioned until a nuclear plant process without the huge risks and radioactive waste is feasible.
 
R

RumblingRosco

Member
Y'all thought anti-nuclear sentiment was bad now, well, if this had happened every nuclear plant on earth would have been shut down by now.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
goomba said:
Fukushima should have been the lesson to the world that nuclear plants of it's kind should all be shutdown and decimissioned until a nuclear plant process without the huge risks and radioactive waste is feasible.
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The newer plants are a lot better. That plant was old as shit and should have been decommissioned or upgraded like advised.
 
S

Shiggy

Member
goomba said:
Fukushima should have been the lesson to the world that nuclear plants of it's kind should all be shutdown and decimissioned until a nuclear plant process without the huge risks and radioactive waste is feasible.
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At least us Germans were smart enough to realise that the potential risks, however small the chance of occurrence is, aren't worth it.
 
F

Frozenprince

Banned
Trojita said:
The newer plants are a lot better. That plant was old as shit and should have been decommissioned or upgraded like advised.
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Yeah the real villain wasn't the plant, it was the massive bureaucratic oversight that has become the Japanese national power industry.
 
R

RoKKeR

Member
Jesus Christ. My brother was there when it happened, crazy to think how close we were to a catastrophe.

Will be headed there in just two weeks for a semester abroad... Happy to have the opportunity.
 
S

Savitar

Member
There were a lot of rumors back then at the time that it was worse than the government was leading on, when it comes to nuclear disasters it's really quite the norm if you follow history with nuclear disasters. They never tell you how bad it truly is, people would panic and go nuts. Can't fool people into believing duck and cover means anything at this point.
 
B

Branduil

Member
goomba said:
Fukushima should have been the lesson to the world that nuclear plants of it's kind should all be shutdown and decimissioned until a nuclear plant process without the huge risks and radioactive waste is feasible.
Click to expand...

Modern plants are already massively safer. Ironically, anti-nuclear sentiment has probably led to nuclear power becoming more dangerous, because new plants aren't built and old ones are relied upon far past their expiration date.
 
S

sn00zer

Member
Yeah, a lot of this info has been accessible for a while if you dug into research paper databases like IHS.
 
J

JonnyDBrit

Member
Trojita said:
Oh fuck that guy that didn't listen to TEPCO and continued pumping the sea water died :(

He got cancer and had a stroke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masao_Yoshida_(nuclear_engineer)
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Reading that, next to the Telegraph article, one gets the feeling that Kan must have picked up that Yoshida had some sense of what he was doing, compared to... well...

Hero through and through. Astonishes me that almost sixty years since the Windscale fire, 'throw water on it' is still one of the more effective answers for averting nuclear disaster.
 
Mr Nash

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
Trojita said:
Oh fuck that guy that didn't listen to TEPCO and continued pumping the sea water died :(

He got cancer and had a stroke.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masao_Yoshida_(nuclear_engineer)
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This part from the wiki article shows how slimy TEPCO is:

Yoshida was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which was determined by TEPCO to be unrelated to the nuclear accident, due to the rapidness of its onset. He retired as plant manager in early December 2012.[5][6] [7] He underwent an operation for the cancer and later suffered a non-fatal stroke.
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Because apparently being at ground zero for the worst nuclear disaster in decades couldn't possibly have contributed to such rapid onset of cancer. /giantrolleyes
 
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so1337

Member
"This part from the wiki article shows how slimy TEPCO is:"
Yoshida was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, which was determined by TEPCO to be unrelated to the nuclear accident, due to the rapidness of its onset. He retired as plant manager in early December 2012.[5][6] [7] He underwent an operation for the cancer and later suffered a non-fatal stroke.
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nothing_to_see_here_ns5o1m.gif
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
so1337 said:
Evacuating the entire city would've been complete chaos. I've seen the public transport system very nearly collapse on a snowy day.
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I remember when they evacuated Houston, Tx back in like 2006 and it took them like 2 days to move 2 million people, and thats with multiple 5+ lane freeways existing to get out of the city. Evacuating 50 million people logistically is impossible.

So lucky this didn't happen. It would have been the biggest catastrophe of our lifetimes.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
DarthWoo said:
Off topic, but reading that quote makes me think about what what would happen if you asked a lot of the members of the House Science Committee if they knew anything about science.
Click to expand...

No need to deal in hypotheticals, just watch the hearings on SOPA/PIPA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBl4EmI_hhg

Then weep at how fucking stupid our "leaders" are. I was living in Austin at the time and literally punched a hole in my wall watching that live. I was so fucking pissed.
 
S

so1337

Member
Krejlooc said:
I remember when they evacuated Houston, Tx back in like 2006 and it took them like 2 days to move 2 million people, and thats with multiple 5+ lane freeways existing to get out of the city. Evacuating 50 million people logistically is impossible.

So lucky this didn't happen. It would have been the biggest catastrophe of our lifetimes.
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For sure. I mean it came pretty close even without the nuclear fallout. The tsunami itself was devastating for the coastal region.
 
D

demon

I don't mean to alarm you but you have dogs on your face
Shiggy said:
At least us Germans were smart enough to realise that the potential risks, however small the chance of occurrence is, aren't worth it.
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Oh bullshit. Fukushima was an old as shit plant built in a horrible spot and they completely fucked up in dealing with the problem. This disaster was 110% avoidable. Nuclear plants built with modern technology and under heavy regulation would be incredibly safe.


It sounds like that guy Masao Yoshida literally saved the nation of Japan. There should be a giant statue of him erected in the middle of Tokyo.
 
D

Deleted member 13876

Unconfirmed Member
Branduil said:
Modern plants are already massively safer. Ironically, anti-nuclear sentiment has probably led to nuclear power becoming more dangerous, because new plants aren't built and old ones are relied upon far past their expiration date.
Click to expand...

This is what is happening in Belgium. There are two plants that were planned to be decommissioned years ago that are still running that have tiny cracks and other reoccurring problems. Our neighboring countries are even pissed at us for keeping those plants running. I am generally in favor of nuclear and would love to see new investments in better, cleaner plants but odds of that happening on a meaningful scale seem to have dropped since this incident.
 
K

Krejlooc

Banned
so1337 said:
For sure. I mean it came pretty close even without the nuclear fallout. The tsunami itself was devastating for the coastal region.
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Yeah but that would have been spitting into the ocean compared to what could have happened. Losing tens of millions of people in an instant would have been insane on a level none of us would ever see again. Hopefully. I can't even fathom that level of destruction.
 
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