Former and current workers within the plant testify that many of the hired hands are yakuza or ex-yakuza members. “When we’d enter the plant, we’d all change clothes first. The cleanup crews were staffed with guys covered with typical yakuza tattoos, a rough bunch”. A former yakuza boss notes, “we’ve always been involved in recruiting laborers for TEPCO. It’s dirty, dangerous work and the only people who will do it are homeless, yakuza, banished yakuza, or people so badly in debt that they see no other way to pay it off.”Now about the dogs:
Sugaoka scoffs at the company’s use of the word “unprecedented” when describing the recent disaster. “TEPCO knowingly used a defective, misaligned piece of equipment for over a decade and doctored video footage showing massive problems. Is it any surprise that the reactor would eventually break down? The containment vessel was never designed to withstand an earthquake. Reactor one is 40 years old, it should have been shut down ten years ago.”
“It seems very clear that TEPCO knew that an earthquake would probably damage the reactors and result in a meltdown. They failed to take preventive measures and their response in after-math was negligent, insufficient, and under Japanese law, they will be held criminally responsible. The question is who will take the fall and how far the investigation will go.”
90,000 people have been evacuated.. the number is expected to rise as early as this week, as radiation “hotspots” outside the 20 km evacuation zone emerge.
Actually, knowing what I do about Jake Adelstein (surely one of the most knowledgeable reporters on Japanese organized crime and the culture that surrounds it) I'd be far more likely to disregard your comment, which is essentially baseless.,Eh, you can pretty much disregard comments by 'charlie don't surf' as a general rule. Here's Jake Adelstein's Wikipedia article if you want to know more about the guy.
A 2006 report predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of Chernobyl fallout.[11] A Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more.[12] A Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 excess deaths occurred between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination.[13] The 2011 report of the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) calculates a total of 1.4 million.[14]So when you consider long-term increased cancer deaths, not just radiation poisoning, the number of people killed by nuclear power is actually three or four orders of magnitude higher. Putting nuclear on par with natural gas and biomass on that chart, and ten times worse then Solar.
Yeah, the numbers of people affected are completely whacky; the solar numbers are from injuries and deaths from people falling off roofs installing panels, for pete's sake. That said, it's pretty clear - and measurable - that particulates in air pollution, including a large quantity from fossil fuel use in the home, in power stations and in transport has direct and serious health effects.I didn't say it didn't. The problem is that he didn't count long-term health effects from Chernobyl
While planning for unusually serious natural disasters would tax any management team, it seems fair to say Tepco was further behind the ball than it should have been.. the backup diesel generators for cooling systems, which should have been placed in an elevated location, were positioned in a basementposted by stbalbach at 10:51 AM on June 29, 2011
I'm struck by how one Japanese poster described the situation: "Religion pursues a dream. Politics finds a middle ground." In this case, "throw the bastards out" is religious slave morality.Religious slave morality? What?
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posted by tumid dahlia at 8:47 PM on June 28, 2011 [6 favorites]