Hands up, anyone who didn’t see this coming? Okay, put your hands down board members of TEPCO:
Japan underestimated the risk of a tsunami hitting a nuclear power plant, the UN nuclear energy agency has said.
However, the response to the nuclear crisis that followed the 11 March quake and tsunami was “exemplary”, it said.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was badly damaged by the tsunami, is still leaking radiation.
Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan is facing a no-confidence vote submitted by three opposition parties over his handling of the crisis.
They say he lacks the ability to lead rebuilding efforts and to end the crisis at the Fukushima plant, public broadcaster NHK reported.
Some politicians from Mr Kan’s governing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), including former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, are backing the motion.
If it is passed in a vote expected on Thursday, Mr Kan would be forced to resign or call a snap election.
However, given the thousands of dead and missing from the earthquake and tsunami, the attention paid to Fukushima has been rather disproportional. As someone joked yesterday, radiation from Fukushima has killed fewer people (none) than e.coli tainted food in Germany (16 at last report).
Update: In case I’m being too obscure, the “this” I refer to in the initial paragraph is the with-the-benefit-of-hindsight conclusion that the Fukushima plant was inadequately prepared for the earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
