Saturday, March 19, 2011

TEPCO director weeps after disclosing the truth about Fukushima

The Daily Mail has released a dramatic picture showing the emotional exhaustion of TEPCO managing director Akio Komori who is openly weeping as he leaves a conference to brief journalists on the true situation at Fukushima, following his acknowledgment that the radiation spewing from the over-heating reactors and fuel rods was enough to kill some citizens. "A senior Japanese minister also admitted that the country was overwhelmed by the scale of the tsunami and nuclear crisis. He said officials should have admitted earlier how serious the radiation leaks were. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said: 'The unprecedented scale of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, frankly speaking, were among many things that happened that had not been anticipated under our disaster management contingency plans." This is precisely as Zero Hedge had expected would happen all along, following our recurring allegations of a massive cover up by the Japanese government. And furthermore as we predicted a week ago when we said that continued government lies and subversions would make the situation untenable once the population loses faith in the government, this is precisely what has happened.
A contrite Komiri crying after he discloses the truth:

And for those who believe the lies that TEPCO and the government has any control over the situation we suggest you read the following:
Deputy director general of the NISA, Hideohiko Nishiyama, also admitted that they do not know if the reactors are coming under control.

He said: 'With the water-spraying operations, we are fighting a fire we cannot see. That fire is not spreading, but we cannot say yet that it is under control.'

And Yukiya Amano, the head of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency said workers were in a 'race against the clock' to cool the reactor.

Attempts to quell the overheating plant with waterbombs from helicopters yesterday failed and despite the army pelting the site with water cannon, radiation levels rose higher.

Engineers are also working to restore power to the coolant pumping system knocked out by the tsunami.
Also, the Mail shows a dramatic photo of a crane used to move spent fuel rodes into a now empty storage pond.
pictures emerged showing overheating fuel rods exposed to the elements through a huge hole in the wall of a reactor building at the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant.

Radiation is streaming into the atmosphere from the used uranium rods at reactor number four, after a 45ft-deep storage pool designed to keep them stable boiled dry in a fire.

And some of the radioactive material could reach Britain within a fortnight, according to experts.

However they say it will not be dangerous when it reaches our shores while low levels of radiation have already hit Southern California.

And while we descrbed the worst case scenario, i.e., the Chernobyl Solution, earlier, there is still hope for a last ditch deux ex machina over the weekend.
There was a potential breakthrough when engineers succeeded in connecting a power line to Reactor 2. This should enable them to restore electricity to the cooling pumps needed to prevent meltdown.

But it is not certain the system will work after suffering extensive damage.
Unfortunately, judging by how horrendously the government and the utility have handled the crisis so far, we are extremely skeptical any further attempts to improve the situation with fail spectacularly. In the meantime, the Japanese economy is slowing grinding to a halt as more people leave Tokyo, as factories lie dormant, and as high tech supply chains are suddenly halted. Out estimate, unlike that of an increasingly less than credible Bloomberg, is that the adverse impact to 2011 world GDP will be well at least 2% when all is said and done just factoring the events to date. Should the situation continue to stagnate it will get far worse.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/tepco-director-weeps-after-disclosing-truth-about-fukushima-disaster