The Japanese Government's Appalling Earthquake, Nuclear Response (1) - The Daily Beast ... - 0 views
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responses incompetence consequences failure japan nuclear fukushima
shared by Dan R.D. on 29 Oct 11
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Residents in the radiation danger zone, instructed to stay inside their homes, are venturing out in search of food and fuel. A Japanese businessman in the country's northeast tells Joan Juliet Buck how government incompetence is killing people who escaped the earthquake.
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Writer, cultural critic, and actor Joan Juliet Buck wrote to a foreign-born Japanese friend in the food business to ask him how we in America could help Japan. Below is his answer. Tellingly, he does not want to be identified
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“As you are a journalist,” he wrote back, “first I would like to explain how the Japanese government and bureaucrats are incompetent against the crisis.”
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In the email he sent me, he combined local press reports with his own observations. The Japanese Red Cross can’t accept the food he is trying to donate for the refugees because there is no gasoline to get it into the stricken areas. Vehicles cannot get through to the affected areas, and Japan’s military, called the Self Defense Force, was forced to travel to the Tohoku region, in the country’s northeast, in a civilian ferry. People ordered to stay in their homes to shelter from radioactive emissions have neither food nor heat and venture out on foot into maximum danger to look for food.
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Here’s a personal look at the situation in Japan today.“This is all the information we’re getting from the Japanese press: I’m giving it to you in bullet points.
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No FuelBecause the government did not ease the regulation on the stocks of fossil fuels, there is a severe lack of fuel in all of Tokyo and the Tohoku area.
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5. Due to the lack of fuel, elderly people are dying of cold, stress, malnutrition, and lack of medicine. Twenty-four of them have died so far.
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Slow Decision MakingThe U.S. government immediately sent an aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, after the earthquake. It arrived in the Tohoku area on March 13 at 4 a.m. Japanese time. Last night, on March 16, I learned that the Japanese Self Defense Force from Hokkaido had just left for the Tohoku area. The force was traveling to Tohoku on a civilian ferry and had planned to arrive today, March 17.Just today the government decided to send fuel to the region in need.
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People Around the Nuclear FacilitiesWithin a 30-kilometer radius around the plants, the government has instructed the refugees to stay sealed indoors. However, the government is not sending in food and fuel to these households and these refugee centers. As food and/or fuel run out, the refugees are walking away from their houses and being exposed to radiation.
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Public Sentiment Is Inhibiting PressureCurrently no press is in the mood to criticize the government. The general public believes that criticism should come later. The opposition parties are also quiet. There is no pressure on the bureaucrats and government to improve the situation.