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March 28, 2011

[SSJ: 6596] Re: Reuters report indicates lack of most basic level of preparedness at Fukushima

From: Paul Midford
Date: 2011/03/28

Unfortunately, the link to this Reuters article was broken.

[a note by the moderator: apologies for not noting earlier about possible breakage of the URL. The forum sends each posting as a plain text file, and a long URL may be broken. For your future reference, please copy and paste the entire URL into your browser when you try to access to a link provided in a posting.]

Regarding the point about radiation screening, it's not clear that the workers were exposed to above normal radiation given that the Fukushima plants apparently did not suffer any significant damage as a result of the earthquake itself. Clearly, TEPCO underestimated the possible scale of tsunami, and therefore the possibility that it could breach their tsunami walls, etc. (I have not seen any indication that any employees were drowned or in danger thereof). The Japanese media has been reporting about TEPCO relying on out of date tsunami science and ignoring warnings that they needed to raise the height of their walls, etc. Given that false sense of security, there are several reasons for scanning employees for radiation levels as per standard operational procedure, not least of all employee safety and the safety of others.

Paul Midford

Approved by ssjmod at 05:09 PM