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Radiation Contamination, and Other Effects of the Disaster
United States and Japanese sources have revealed to Kyodo News that the US spent a special nuclear response team to Japan immediately following the outbreak of the Fukushima disaster, but radiation data it provided to the Japanese government was ignored, and in fact, high-ranking government officials were not even aware of the team’s presence until more than a week after they arrived. The US reportedly sent its Consequence Management Response Team (CMRT), which is affiliated with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), an agency of the Department of Energy, at the request of US Forces Japan, the US Embassy in Tokyo, and under the orders of the White House National Security Council. The CMRT was sent to Fukushima in order to protect US servicemen who were assigned to Fukushima on a humanitarian mission after the massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. The group of 33 experts conducted radiation testing using sophisticated equipment and manned 100 flight operations between early March and May 28, 2011. Yukio Edano, then-Chief Cabinet Secretary, admitted that had he had access to the radiation dispersion information, different decisions might have been made. “We did not get any briefing [about the CMRT.] We established areas within 20 km of the plant as an evacuation zone before [we knew about the operations.] People in areas 20-30 km away were recommended to stay indoors. I cannot exclude the possibility that we would have recommended people who lived in the northwest of the plant to evacuate from those areas earlier [if they had had the CMRT’s radiation data.]” Namie Assembly Chairman Kazuhiro Yoshida expressed incredulity and anger at the disclosure, saying, “It is outrageous that the government did not inform us about the radioactive data at that time.”
Read more at Fukushima Nuclear Crisis Update for December 28th, 2012 to January 3rd, 2013
