Transcripts of phone conversations in the days after last year’s tsunami in Japan, released Tuesday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, show an early sense of urgency, as well as confusion, about the emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor complex.
The transcripts also include lengthy discussions justifying NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko’s controversial decision to urge Americans within a 50-mile radius of the Japanese nuclear plant to evacuate. They show that the decision was based in part on an assessment, now thought to be false, that one of the Fukushima Daiichi spent fuel pools was dry and that its walls had, in the words of one official, “crumbled,” releasing radioactive elements.
Continue reading at NRC Fukushima transcripts show urgency, confusion early on
