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Conflicting reports, mounting fear, over Japanese nuclear disaster
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March 18, 2011
Original URL: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Conflicting_reports,_mounting_fear,_over_Japanese_nuclear_disaster



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  Secretary  reported to Congress Wednesday that the incidents at the 
may end up as a larger disaster than the  faced by the U.S. in 1979.
However, he said  reports from Japan officials are contradictory, and
concluded that "[w]e don't really know in detail what's happening. We
hear conflicting reports."

International frustration is focusing on the slow pace and lack of
detail characterizing the updates from Japan. The director general of
the , , said Japan needs to provide more frequent and detailed
information on the crisis to the world.

Currently, the lack of information is particularly important regarding
the threat posed by reactor number four. The building housing the
reactor is no longer on fire, but smoke or steam is visible on
television pictures. Yoshitaka Nagayama, a spokesman for Japan's ,
admitted that "[b]ecause we have been unable to go the scene, we cannot
confirm whether there is water left or not in the spent fuel pool at
Reactor No. 4." 

Thomas Neff, a reactor safety expert with the , said: "The problem is
that nobody knows. If you don't know and you're , you probably underplay
it. If you're the , you probably see it in a worse light." 

"The odds are pretty good that no one has good information," said a
former  commissioner, Peter Bradford, who was on the commission at the
time of the Three Mile Island disaster.  

== Sources == 
* http://edition.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/16/chu.nuclear.energy/
* http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Workers+briefly+abandon+Japan+nuclear+plant+crisis+mounts/4446044/story.html
* http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/03/17/17climatewire-fukushima-crisis-worsens-as-us-warns-of-a-lar-9187.html

== External links ==



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