fukushima fuck-up

the obvious is now being acknowledged -- a scant 3 months too late!

when the quake and tsunami knocked the shit out of the fukushima nuke plant in japan on march 11, it was pretty damn obvious right away that there was a major, major crisis unfolding -- one of the greatest urgency.

yet what we got -- and pretty much all we've gotten since -- is vaguely reassuring double-talk from government and industry (one in the same, to an unfortunate extent) about how the situation was under control.

move along folks, nothing to see here...

now, at long last, the truth is finally coming to light, and it's just and grim and unsettling as anything you could imagine:

ALI MOORE, PRESENTER: Japanese authorities have admitted the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant in March may have been worse than a core meltdown.
In an official report that will go to the UN's nuclear watchdog, Japan says nuclear fuel in three reactors possibly melted through several pressure vessels and into the earth below. 
As North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy reports, a so-called melt-through is the worst outcome in a nuclear accident.
MARK WILLACY, REPORTER: For the Japanese the news from Fukushima gets worse every day. 
This week it went from a reactor meltdown to what they're calling a melt-through.
GOSHI HOSONO, SPECIAL ADVISOR TO JAPANESE PM (Translation): At present there is damage to the bottom of the reactor container, we call this ‘core melting’ in English. Part of the nuclear fuel has fallen onto the dry earth floor and it's possible that it's still lodged there.
MARK WILLACY: According to atomic experts, this is about as serious as it gets in a nuclear disaster. Dangerous levels of radioactive iodine and cesium have already contaminated the sea, the soil, groundwater, and the air.
This week plutonium was detected for the first time outside the stricken plant, and Strontium-90, known as a bone seeker because it can cause bone cancer and Leukaemia, has now been found as far away as 60 kilometres from the facility.
Higher levels were found closer to the plant in Minamisoma, a city of 70,000.

if you care to read more of this dispatch, it's from ABC Lateline (australia, of course -- this ain't no disneyland!)

about as serious as it can get... got that? what a bunch of rotten fucking assholes we have running this world!