Squanto wrote:
YankeeInRaleigh wrote:
Why is that ridiculous? The gov is responsible for setting safety standards, enforcing code, etc etc. At some level they ok'd building powerplants which could withstand 7.9 earthquakes. I'd think that in one of the worlds most geologically active areas that perhaps you'd want nuclear power plants which can stand up to the worst earthquakes, not just bad ones. I dont see criticism of the government as ridiculous.
They did.
The reactors stood up to the earthquake just fine. The tsunami killed the backup power generators, and that's the major cause of the current problems.
Had this happened almost anywhere else in the world, those would have melted down days ago with major radiation release. Japan has the strictest rules in the world on this stuff due to their earthquake history.
Blaming the government here is folly.
Well, it's kind of complicated, I can agree with both sides but this is not the time for blame.
The power outage was the initial problem but there were 2 other backups that failed. The first was run on deisel power, and the last line of defense actually ran on the steam caused from the overheating, which was then cooled and recycled back into it. The designer thinks that there is a crack somewhere in the main housing and that's why it's so difficult to keep them cooled off, because the coolants keep leaking out!
Couple that knowledge with the fact that the company in charge of all of these plants was caught falsifying documents in recent years! To cover up--you guessed it--cracks. When I hear shit like that I know in my heart that hands were greased from the bottom up, I'm sure there's fault to be found in their government as well, at least in the form of a few bad apples. But this is the time for praying for lives to be saved.
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