“Panicked
Workers Fled Fukushima Plant in 2011 Despite Orders, Record Shows”, the NYT headline reads. Now that’s a very
serious allegation, portraying as craven cowards all but several dozen of the TEPCO
employees at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Station at the time of the 9.11
disaster. But the very first sentence of the report lets the first cat out of
the bag:
“At the most dire
moment of the Fukushima nuclear crisis three years ago, hundreds of panicked
employees abandoned the damaged plant despite being ordered to remain on hand
for last-ditch efforts to regain control of its runaway reactors, according to
a previously undisclosed record of the accident that was reported Tuesday by a
major Japanese newspaper.”
Okay,
so the NYT posted a meta-report if you will. This made me laugh a little,
because I’d always thought the international news in Japanese newspapers that
were essentially summaries of one US media report or another being reported ot
of New York, Wahington and other chouise locations funny. (Did the Japanese
media really need Japanese reporters in New York and Washington and elsewhere
producing summaries of newspaper and magazine clippings? At least if they could
understand TV broadcasts…) To Martin Fackler’s credit, he had his local staff
do a little more reaserch.
“At a regular news
conference, the top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet
secretary, did not challenge the accuracy of the Asahi report. He
said the transcripts of interviews with Mr. Yoshida and others involved in the
accident had not been disclosed because they were not intended for the public
record, though he did not explain why.”
Now,
a neutral rendering of Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga’s comments would be along
the lines of:
“At a regular news
conference, the top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet
secretary, did not address the accuracy of the Asahi report…”
And
that would have been a safer hedge, because—but I’m getting ahead of myself. In
any case, Fackler further insulates his report from criticism by writing
further down the story:
“A spokesman for Tepco,
Ryo Shimizu, disputed one crucial aspect of the Asahi report, saying that
company records showed Mr. Yoshida issued a more vaguely worded order to
withdraw to “low radiation areas,” a term that could also include the
neighboring plant six miles away. Thus, he said, Tepco did not view the fleeing
employees as actually having violated an order.”
That
said, the article concludes with the following, reinforcing the impression that
the TEPCO employees fled the scene against Yoshida’s explicit orders:
“The newspaper said Mr.
Yoshida told investigators that he was surprised to learn that so many managers
had fled, prompting him to contact the other plant to order their immediate
return.
“‘Actually, I never
told them to withdraw to 2F,’ Mr. Yoshida was quoted as saying, referring to
the second nuclear plant. ‘When I was told they had gone to 2F, it was already
too late.’”
Days
later, though, Sankei got its hands on the same Yoshida testimony—hard not to
think of it as a deliberate Abe administration counter-leak—and launched its
own series of articles directly refuting Asahi’s most serious allegation—fleeing
the scene of the accident against Yoshida’s explicit orders. We will know soon
for sure who is making up what, since the government has apparently decided to
make the Yoshida testimony public, which had been withheld at Mr. Yoshida’s
request (which explains the laconic Mr. Suga’s refusal to elaborate on the
document), after obtaining the deceased’s family’s consent. In the meantime, here
is the
most relevant part of the testimony (as revealed by Sankei in excerpts):
“Q. In the morning of the
15th, the people who had evacuated to Fukushima Da-Ni return…
“Mr. Yoshida: Actually,
I didn’t tell them to go to Fukushima Dai-Ni. When I said to have automobiles
at the ready, the person who delivered the message gave an instruction to the
drivers to go to Fukushima Dai-Ni. I had thought that I had told them to
evacuate for now to some place near Fukushima Dai-Ichi where the radiation
level was low, but since they’d gone to Fukushima Dai-Ni, so I was like, oh my.
So after they’d reached Fukushima Dai-Ni, we had the group manager-level people
come back.”
“Q. The people who’d evacuated to Fukushima Dai-Ni
return in the morning of the 15th...
“Mr. Yoshida: I’d said
what I’d said meaning that I wanted them to evacuate to a place where the
radiation level had stabilized, but when you think about it, they’re all
wearing masks. If they remain evacuated for hours [with the masks on], they’ll
die. When you really think about it, it was much, much more correct to go to Fukushima
Dai-Ni.”
Yes, it’s possible that Yoshida
is covering for his subordinates. But the existence of a possibility does not
justify the spin that Asahi put on its
story. Coming on the heels of its comfort women revelations, it will be
interesting to see how it wiggles out of this one, assuming that the government
actually releases those document for the public record. In the meantime, Martin
Fackler has wisely covered his butt. But not the NYT editorial desk. Now, I guess my questions are: Will there be an Asahi mea culpa (if indeed there is need
for one)? And an NYT follow-up?
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