Japanese owner of the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant falsified safety data and “dishonestly” tried to cover up problems there.
Tokyo Electric Power Co injected air into the containment vessel of Fukushima reactor No 1 to artificially “lower the leak rate”. When caught, the company expressed its “sincere apologies for conducting dishonest practices”.
The misconduct came to light in 2002 after whistleblowers working for General Electric, which designed the reactor, complained to the Japanese government. Another GE employee later confessed that he had falsified records of inspections of reactor No1 in 1989 - at the request of TEPCO officials. He also admitted to falsifying other inspection reports, also on request of the client. After that incident TEPCO was forced to shut down 17 reactors, albeit temporarily.
~snip~
BBC-
1208: For a sense of the sheer scale of the disaster and the humanitarian challenge facing Japan check out this photo gallery http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12771634 we’ve recently updated.
1204: Andy in Tokyo tweets: “Power is fine in Kichijoji. People shopping as normal. No sense of panic or impending doom on the streets.”
1133: The First Secretary at Japan’s embassy in London has been speaking to BBC News. He defended his government from criticism that it has been slow to provide information. “The Japanese authorities consider it is a very important aspect to provide accurate and swift information. The situation develops minute-to-minute and hour-to-hour so what we need to explain will change,” Daisuke Tsuchiya said.
1048: Ken Mogi in Tokyo tweets: “Just in: NHK says spraying of water from ground onto reactor abandoned due to operation difficulty and high radiation”
RETUERS live blog:
-TEPCO says the earliest time to re-connect electricity to the Fukushima plant would be Friday.
by Reuters_MarkKolmar at 3/17/2011 12:08:05 PM
-Radiation level rises after water shot at troubled reactor: TEPCO via english.kyodonews.jp
comment by Mark at 3/17/2011 11:58:18 AM7:58 AM
-Japanese broadcaster NHK’s diorama of the damaged Japanese nuclear plant. izreloaded.blogspot.com
comment by izreloaded edited by Reuters_MarkKolmar at 3/17/2011 12:12:41 PM8:12 AM
Oh, boy....
Accurate reporting shall dribble out. Including how as this post indicates, the Japanese simply did not do a good job of making their nuclear power plants as safe as they could have been. Even days back we read about how their systems keep the holding trays for spent fuel to high for easy access in case of reactor problems. Plus it is now coming out how they have not performed many of the upgrades on their systems that US facilities are required to do.