Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Dramas. Immersive storytelling from the BBC World Service. Previously on Fukushima... Tepco is a private company, Prime Minister. They said there was no radioactive leak. You really think they'd have the first idea if there was?
The Nuclear Preparedness Act is a work of supreme genius. Only if you're in one emergency, not three. It doesn't mention power grids going down or helicopters fishing babies out of the sea. I just watched a boat go clean through someone's living room. My men need sleep, not to be roaring out the red carpet for visiting dignitaries. I understand. So you have power? No.
With the alternative power sources, we managed to get some readings. What alternative sources? Car batteries. You're running this plant on car batteries? TEPCO are stalling on venting the reactors to release pressure. We could do it manually. Prepare suicide teams to open the vents. Suicide teams? That's what you call them? No, that's what they are. Fukushima, Episode 3.
It's a simple question, Matsui-san. Does Tepco know if it was the core or the building which exploded?
We don't know at this time, Prime Minister. What are the radiation readings? Nobody knows, sir. I'm quite sure somebody does. Just not you. I have to hear about this on the television? I'm sorry, sir. Tell President Shimizu I want him in my office in 20 minutes with every speck of information you have. The President and Chairman are still not here, sir. What the hell is going on over there? I will find out, sir.
Hosono, I'm not doing this press conference until I have more information. Someone has to. Then someone else can. There's a rumor at Tepco. The president Shimizu has killed himself. What? It's a rumor, but someone in the press may ask. I don't want you to be taken by surprise. I need to talk to Yoshida.
Speaking by telephone from the Daiichi power plant at 4pm on the 12th of March, plant manager Yoshida confirms that the lack of electrical power caused the compressed air, which would normally exit via the external venting stacks, to backflow onto the service floor of Unit 1 and react with the hydrogen, causing an explosion.
The core, it seems, is undamaged, though this fact is unknown to the wider public who anxiously watch the explosion live on television. The explosion has released small amounts of iodine and radioactive caesium-137 into the air, and the prevailing wind is carrying it in the direction of the towns of Namie, Futaba and Fukushima City. Though the venting team returned safely, falling rubble injured 15 workers outside the Unit 1 reactor.
At the crisis response centre, Yoshida is growing increasingly frustrated that the materials he has ordered from the private company which runs the plant, TEPCO, are not arriving. Circuit breakers, rotation cables, high voltage transformers, nothing's getting through, Prime Minister. They're being stopped by the police. Where are they right now? Stuck in J village. Why are they stuck in J village? I don't know. Paperwork? Just give me the weapons, sir.
Give me the weapons and I can fight this. Of course. I'll do what I can, Yoshida-san. Thank you. If you have any more problems, please call direct on this line. Prime Minister, if you want me to call every time there's a new problem, you might just as well stay on the line. I understand.
The Prime Minister gave Yoshida-san a direct line. And Yoshida used it. But Suto-san, doesn't that go against the whole idea of how information was supposed to be flowing through the nuclear emergency headquarters? That's certainly how Prime Minister Kan's enemies saw it.
Is there another way to see it? Yes, Aiko-san, there is. Yoshida was giving the Prime Minister the unfiltered, vast news. The kind of news you might not want to declare in front of the 80 or so people in the room who are trying to concentrate on their work. Yes, here. Here we are again at the crossroads of theory and simple human reality. ♪
Following Yoshida's suggestion, Prime Minister Naoto Kan begins to advocate to TEPCO that injecting seawater into the core is the only viable action that would keep the reactors cool. TEPCO resists.
What are you talking about, Matsui? Damaging the reactors? Reusing the reactors? Is anyone over at TEPCO looking at anything other than the balance sheets? Prime Minister, our assessment is that the salt deposit could set in motion a chain reaction. You are fundamentally failing to grasp the gravity of this situation, Matsui. Let me explain to you the chain reaction I see. We lose the Daiichi plant.
then the Daini plant, then Tokai, then we lose Tokyo, then Honshu, then Japan as we know it. I'm not sure how many times Prime Minister Kang returned to the nuclear emergency headquarters after that. You will have to check.
He relocated to his office. Did he call Tepco about the cables Yoshida-san was talking about? Oh, yes. He waited two hours for a reply. Why did it take so long? Things got very confusing, very quickly. It was hard to know what information was supposed to go where. Did anything go right? Well, we're sitting here, Akiko-san. Ten kilometres from the Daiichi plant, ten years later...
bottle of sake on the table. Empty bottle. No, I really mustn't. You're not still driving to Iwaki, Akiko-san. There is a spare room. Oh, you do as you please, but I'm getting more sake. The TEPCO president didn't kill himself. Shimizu? Of course he didn't. He's playing golf as we speak, probably. I don't know where the rumor came from, but
I also heard someone found him curled up in a ball in a restroom cubicle, sobbing like a baby. I doubt that's true either. Where were they all that time? Chairman Katsumata was on a publicity trip in China with Labour bosses. He flew back when the airports reopened. But Shimizu...
Would you like a comic interview, Akiko-san? I think you could use one. Okay. As I understand it, Shimizu was on holiday in Nara, but nobody could get in touch with him. When they finally did, all transportation to Tokyo had been stopped. So they told him he had a Tepco helicopter waiting for him in Nagoya.
It took hours to get there, and it was evening when he arrived. He climbed on board, but there was an argument. It turns out his pilot didn't have a license to fly at night, so poor Shimizu disembarked with his bags.
Somehow, they found a military aircraft for him, which took off about midnight. But the Minister of Defence hadn't pre-approved it. So, on approach to Tokyo, his plane was told to turn round and divert to Nagoya. Oh, no. They managed to find him a hotel room. And in the morning, bright and early, he took his helicopter and flew to Tokyo...
It's a 12-kilometre trip from a heliport to Tepco headquarters downtown. But he sat in the traffic for nearly three hours and finally got there almost a day after the earthquake. Come to think of it, perhaps the crying in the toilet story is true. LAUGHTER
I mean, everyone said they weren't there, as if they'd run away. But they got stuck, just like everyone else. You can't really blame them for not knowing what was going to happen. People see what they want to see. Do you think Prime Minister Khan wanted to see incompetence? Wanted to? No.
But I wouldn't be too surprised if he thought in a moment of weakness that this was the perfect opportunity to bring in sweeping reform. He was quite gifted at capitalising on a scandal to make a name for himself. When he was elected in 2010, Prime Minister Kan really wanted to change Japan.
He was a relatively young man, no doubt inspired by what had happened in the United States with Obama only a year or so before. And yes, perhaps the rage he felt for these old institutions made him want to see incompetence. But whether you wanted to see it or not, there was plenty. The lack of top management placed everybody in positions they were not familiar with.
We were just acting. Acting for the cameras, acting for each other. The first few press conferences were a woeful spectacle. Humiliating. Someone from TEPCO get fired or something for saying the word meltdown? Or is that fake news? He was supposed to say an overheating event. He wasn't fired. Just relieved of press duties.
Remember what I said about Naoto Kan being an existential threat? He was. We knew if there was the slightest hint that we were at fault, it would spell doom for the future. And by doom, of course, I mean reform. It took two hours to respond to Kan about Yoshida's cables because we had a meeting on how to respond. That was my work, relations strategy. So there you have it, Akiko-san.
This is where I enter the story. I'm not judging you. If you think I am, I'm not. I don't judge. Not even if a part of you wants me to. Ay, Cosa. Don't presume to know what I want. Remember, I am the one helping you here. Yes, I know you are, but...
Considering you haven't spoken to anyone for two years, it didn't take much coaxing to get you to talk to me. You work in a radiation testing laboratory, Akio-san. You are a remarkable woman, and your work is noble work. But that doesn't make you counsellors, I'm afraid. That is not what you do. What do you think I do?
What do you think I do when Mrs. Ueda tells me her son has died and asks if I can sit with her? What I do, Suto-san, is I sit with her and I say I'm listening. Because nobody else is. Who else is going to sit there? Tefco?
The disaster compensation application form is 60 pages long and comes with a 125-page explanatory booklet. Is that relation strategy? Is that reframing complex data into a more consumable product? Mrs Ueda, who lives down the road, her son is dead. Yes. His name was Akio. He was 22. His father died in the tsunami. They moved to Yokohama with family.
She came back when restrictions were lifted. He didn't. Tried to make a life for himself. Last week, he threw himself off the roof of the Seirei Yokohama Hospital. Landed on an ambulance. What was he doing there? He'd swallowed a bottle of mood stabilizers. He'd been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It must be terrible. It is. But it's treatable. Mrs. Ueda is one of the only people I know. We meet at the supermarket sometimes.
I should go and see her. Does she know I worked for Tepco? I have no idea. Do you mean that? That you would go and see her? Because if you do, you should ask her why Akio killed himself. You said he had bipolar. No, that's why he was in the hospital. What threw him off the roof was the shame of being in pain in a country where you're not allowed to be in pain.
That's our greatest cognitive dissonance, not nuclear power. And that's what I do. I tell people it's okay to be in pain. You think I'm in pain? I think your decision to move here makes no sense unless you're in pain. Then it all makes sense. Did you quit or retire? I took early retirement after my wife passed away. Her name was Yoko.
She died in 2013. I'm very sorry. Thank you. And you stayed four years in Tokyo on your own after buying this house in 2015? I had the dogs and my daughters live in Tokyo. Why did you take early retirement? It became more and more complicated to continue as if nothing had happened. After the nuclear disaster? After Yoko.
Why did you contact Naoto Kan? I thought I could contribute. To what? He was trying to gather information. He'd created a think tank which took a position against nuclear power. Are you against nuclear power? I'm against power, Akiko-san. The kind of power Tepco wields. Why did you give up on it? Because I didn't fit. Because I'm not that person.
At the plant, Yoshida's efforts to restore power to the Unit 2 reactor using converters end in disappointment. Battery trucks are arriving, but still with incompatible equipment. Heat from the fuel cores of Units 2 and 3 is pushing pressure beyond tolerance thresholds, and the water continues to boil away.
Radiation levels are rising. The plant is rapidly running out of fresh water to cool the cores and the meltdown of all active reactors has now moved from possible to probable. Unaware that Prime Minister Khan has requested permission from TEPCO to inject seawater, Yoshida decides he cannot wait any longer and orders the fire trucks to start pumping the seawater directly into the reactors.
At 7pm, Tepco finally concede that there is no other option and contact the plant. Yes.
Yes, Matsui-san. You had no right to commence sea water injections. You were given no authorization. Prime Minister Kan says yes. You've just said yes. You know what I mean. I mean before. What difference does that make at this point? Stay there, Yoshida-san. I'm informing my superior. Your insubordination has been noted. I'm not going anywhere, Matsui-san. Unlike you. I can't leave.
Go and talk with whoever you need to. Saito, cut my microphone. Kaneko, can I have a word, please? In a minute or so, they will order me to stop all seawater injections. When they do that, I will order you in the clearest possible terms to comply. Yes, sir. No, no, Kaneko, come back.
When I give that order, I want you to say, yes, sir, as loud as you can, and then ignore me. Sir? When I order you to stop seawater injections, you are under no circumstances to stop seawater injections. Is that clear? Yes, sir. Yoshida-san, I could recommend that you be pulled in front of the disciplinary council. Do you hear me? Unmute your microphone, please. I hear you, sir.
You are to seize seawater injections immediately until further notice. On your orders, sir. Kaneko! Sir! Seize all seawater injections immediately! Yes, sir!
When did Tepco finally approve the seawater? They waited a respectable time, just enough to save some face. We established the hierarchy. About an hour. Until Yoshida went public, they had no idea he'd ignore them. Unbelievable. For some, perhaps. Listen to that. That is the sound of my childhood. The Higurashi cicada. It never changes. It's always the same.
Always will be. But they are not the same. Not these ones. They don't know that, obviously, but they are not the same. Nor are the birds, the trees, the grass, the crops, the fish. It's so hard to imagine how the blossoms are out and everything looks and smells so normal. But the radiation is here. It's everywhere. Sometimes I think I can hear it. A kind of buzzing.
So I'm glad you can still hear their higurashi. I'm glad it still brings you joy. You're going to have to move out of here, you know? I know. In a year? Maybe two? They're running out of space. They'll bulldoze it all. All those bags. All that waste. And now there's the water, of course. Treatment plants. Yes, I know.
And you could have moved anywhere to hear the higurashi. So you're not fooling anyone. What do you want from me, Yakuza? What more? Not more. You still haven't told me what you're really doing here. Will you not leave me alone? Why are you here? Clean up, testing, talking to the residents. You see, if you were doing these things, I wouldn't be so curious. Yes.
The reason would be obvious. And what would that be? That, given your past, you considered your coming here a kind of penance. So your move here was inspired by a spontaneous rush of altruism. Yet mine was obviously driven by dark forces of my checkered past. Yes. You said you didn't fit.
Fit with who? Men of purpose? Men of conviction? Men who can see what's right and do it because to do otherwise is a betrayal of themselves? Like you, Akiko-san. You say you don't judge, but you do. You want to see guilt in me. You want a confession. You want me to repent for the sins of my former employer. Is that it? What right do you have?
You arrived three months ago with a half-baked idea for a university report and asked for my help. Yet you talk as if your being here is your destiny. If you consider this your destiny, then I assure you it has nothing to do with anything I may have done.
Your destiny and mine was sealed in the spring of 2008 when a man named Tadao Kojima, a TEPCO researcher, walked into a conference room at the TEPCO head office with a laptop computer and began a presentation.
We are extremely concerned that an earthquake of 9.0, increasingly likely given the seismic data we have provided for you here today, could give rise to a tsunami of up to 40 metres, which by the time it reaches land would be 12 to 15 metres in height by our estimation.
As you know, a 12 to 15 metre tsunami would overtop the defensive wall at Daiji by 7 to 10 metres, rendering it utterly ineffective. The plant would be swamped with water, causing damage to backup systems and generators, and could well be plunged into blackout. Our calculation...
Our calculation is that an extension of just three or four more meters on the wall would mitigate this. And this is our recommendation. Station blackout at Daiichi? Where are you getting this information? This is speculative. It is not speculative. You commissioned this report. You will watch your tone, please. Yes, sir. A very interesting theory. Very interesting. And I look forward to further research. Thank you, Kojima-san.
Thank you, gentlemen. Hard to believe, isn't it? Almost a fiction. You know the scene in the big American movie when the powers that be refuse to listen to the scientist who knows exactly how the movie is about to unfold. That was a scene. But in the movies, they realise the error of their ways and the scientists make a triumphant return just in time.
Tadao Kojima was never asked to speak in front of them again. Three years later, just four days before the earthquake, Akiko-san, just four days, the same man received a dutifully revised report reducing the magnitude to 7.2 and the wave to 10 meters. They were reassured and deemed the scenario manageable.
You said you can't blame someone for not knowing what was going to happen. But you can, Akiko-san, because they did. A little after three o'clock on the morning of Monday the 14th of March, Unit 3 is vented by Yoshida's suicide teams to release pressure in the reactor. As with Unit 1 the previous day, it is largely seen as inevitable that the released hydrogen will react with the oxygen.
Unit 3 is less than 20 meters away from the pools in Unit 4, which house the spent rods. So, we agree the most important question isn't if Unit 3 is going to explode, but how.
Logically, if the gas ignites, it will escape... When the gas ignites. The gas will escape from the easiest available exit, yes? Yes, but even if a vertical blast is... Easiest available exit is through...
Though a vertical blast is the most... It's not going to blast through five metres of bricks and mortar. There's a vent on the north side, Saito, right next to Unit 4. Yes, I agree. A vertical blast is the most likely scenario. It's what happened in Unit 1. Yes, I'm aware of that. But we have to prepare for... Prepare for the blast ripping a hole in Unit 4? Destroying the fuel rod pools? How do we prepare for that?
We don't. A horizontal explosion is the end of this. If those fuel rod pools are compromised, Yoshi, there's nothing to prepare for. It's over. We need to start sending people home.
in the next episode of Fukushima. Why isn't the temperature going down, Saito? These numbers mean not enough water. Is there a leak in the pipe? Bending team, we're ready, sir. No, Ito. You are 23. You have a baby. You are going home. Sir, I trained on Unit 3. There's only one pipe that could be leaking and I know where it is.
Matsui-san. Yes, Prime Minister. Why do I have the feeling I don't know half of what I need to know about radiation? The American Embassy has just told U.S. nationals to evacuate 100 kilometers. We're still at 20. Sir, with respect, the evacuation of citizens... Don't you dare tell me this is not TEPCO's business. It's your power station. Do your job.
The fate of this plant is now in the hands of a very few. Our job is clear: to cool the reactors. I can't tell you that you won't be risking your life. You will. But I can tell you that you'll be risking your life to save Japan.
In Fukushima Episode 3, Suto is played by Togo Egawa and Akiko by Amy Okamura-Jones. Prime Minister Kan is Kevin Shen, Ishida is Eiji Mahara, Matsui Akira Koyama, Sato Sadao Ueda, Kojima Matt Mikui, and Kaneko is Nino Furuhata. The narrator is Romola Garai.
Fukushima is written by Adrian Penketh. Sound design is by Peter Ringrose. The director is Sasha Yevtushenko and the producer is Toby Swift. Fukushima, from the BBC World Service, is a BBC Audio production.