International Law

Stunning

By Karl-Friedrich Lenz

This Wall Street Journal article quotes an anonymous regulator:

“Radiation levels in some parts of the facilities are just stunning,” said one official at Japan’s nuclear regulator. “The work to fix the cooling system was made all the more difficult by the lack of information about where radiation is high inside the complex.”

What is stunning here is that two weeks in they still even don’t know the radiation levels for their own plant.

With the German military on site to find out that problem would not exist. As I noted before, the Bundeswehr has some serious capability in dealing with nuclear incidents. Mapping radiation levels is the obvious first step. The internationally famous “Fuchs” armored vehicles are exactly right for this job.

The other day I asked here why the Germans are not on the ground already. I mailed a Bundeswehr spokesman and to my pleasant surprise actually got an answer quickly. I even got permission to blog about that answer, with the condition that I stress that the answer is only valid for the time of the question (two days ago) and the situation can change. Which well it should, in my opinion.

The reason is that the Japanese have at the moment not asked for this assistance. The reason they have not asked is that they lack the capability to transport foreign helpers to the site.

If that is the only problem, I am sure the Americans can give the German operators a ride. Operation Tomodachi is running right now. I would be very surprised if the Americans were unable to get a couple of vehicles and operators on site.

At the very least, the German Government should offer exactly this assistance under Article 2 Paragraph 4 of the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency.

And the Japanese Government really should consider asking for this assistance.

Full post as published by Lenz Blog on March 26, 2011 (boomark / email).