Chernobyl recovery officer criticises Japan's "slow motion" efforts at Fukushima

[flamingdem]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8472416/Chernobyl-recovery-officer-criticises-Japans-efforts-at-Fukushima.html

Chernobyl recovery officer criticises Japan's efforts at Fukushima

Soviet efforts to contain the Chernobyl nuclear disaster a quarter of a century ago were far better than Japan's "slow-motion" response to the disaster at Fukushima, a leading member of the 1986 recovery effort said.


By Andrew Osborn, Moscow 5:49PM BST 25 Apr 2011

In a rare interview on the eve of the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl on Monday, Col-Gen Nikolai Antoshkin said he was shocked at how poorly Japan had coped with its own nuclear disaster.

"Right at the start when there was not yet a big leak of radiation they (the Japanese) wasted time.

And then they acted in slow-motion," he said.

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The Soviets had evacuated 44,600 people within two and a half hours and put them up in "normal comfortable conditions" on the same day, he recalled.
Gen Antoshkin said he thought the Japanese were simply unable to cope on their own. "It is clear that they do not have enough strength or means. They need to ask the international community for help," he said. "I think the Japanese catastrophe is already more serious than Chernobyl. The main thing is that they do not allow it to become three, four or five times more serious."

Gen Antoshkin, 68, was in charge of Soviet pilots who flew over Chernobyl's stricken fourth reactor, dropping lead, sand and clay from the air to try to contain radiation. In the ten days after the accident on 26 April 1986, his pilots flew 4,000 such flights, exposing themselves to huge radiation doses. MORE AT LINK

[Turbineguy]

1. Maybe the Japanese don't have as many people

to waste as the Russians did.

[w4rma]

2. Or as much space. (nt)

[SpoonFed]

4. yeah

your attitude towards the (willing or otherwise) sacrifices made to bring the Chornobyl disaster under some sort of reasonable amount of human control really speaks volumes for your viewpoint and position on this deadly issue.

I guess it was self evident when you mentioned some hands on experience in the nuclear industry.

Let me guess, you're going to sit on your high horse and point out what mistakes were made in handling (until that point) the greatest nuclear fission reactor disaster in history? And you'll do this comfortably from the chair in front of your computer and from 26+ years in the future.

I don't see many pro-nuclear talkers stepping up to the plate around here to risk their lives for a greater good. It's all nice clean and tidy science and engineering until the shit hits the fan, then everyone else gets to deal with it.

[Turbineguy]

7. Your anger does not make you a mind reader.

At least not my mind. I never mentioned I have experience in the nuclear industry for the simple reason that I don't. And I don't think my horse is quite as high as yours.

There are people out there who are quite satisfied with the way this disaster is progressing. There are people who are quite happy to take Russia off the number one spot for nuclear disasters. That's what I was thinking when I made the post.

[SpoonFed]

8. uh...

there who are quite satisfied with the way this disaster is progressing

I surely hope that the phrase "with the attempts to control and/or mitigate" was inadvertently left out of your statement after word satisfied.

As for anger, I think it's reasonable to have such an emotion for anyone that refers to people, Russians, Japanese or otherwise, as a commodity to waste.

[CJvR]

3. Actually...

...the Soviets wasted some 24h before even warning the locals of the catastrophe, that is the main source of the high exposure of civilians at Chernobyl (combined with an iodine deficiency just to make matters worse). Once the balloon went up the Soviets solved it in a traditional Soviet manner, by throwing people at it. Some 600.000 liquidators were more or less irradiated. I don't think the Soviets have much to teach the world on responding to nuclear disasters. The Japanese disaster is nowhere near disastrous enough yet to justify such extreme measures.

[SpoonFed]

5. additional data?

The Japanese disaster is nowhere near disastrous enough yet to justify such extreme measures.

Can you post some of the documents you're reading while sitting in the TEPCO inner sanctum, please?
The rest of us are still trying to piece together the full picture from the scraps of information that is spoon fed to us...

[Someguyinjapan]

6. Right

The Japanese disaster is nowhere near disastrous enough yet

But then again, the Japanese government has also admitted that Fukushima has the potential to exceed Chernobyl, so I don't think that Japanese have much to teach the world about speedy responses to nuclear disasters.