Conditions at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant are far worse than its operator or the government has admitted, according to freelance journalist Tomohiko Suzuki, who spent more than a month working undercover at the power station. A book by Tomohiko Suzuki detailing many of his experiences at the plant and connections between yakuza crime syndicates and the nuclear industry, titled "Yakuza to genpatsu" (the yakuza and nuclear power), was published by Bungei Shunju on Dec. 15.
Some 1,400 people have filed a joint lawsuit against three companies that manufactured the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, saying they should be financially liable for damage caused by its 2011 meltdowns.
The plant's operator recently admitted for the first time that radioactive water was still going into the sea. On Tuesday [23 July], Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said steam was seen around the fifth floor of the building housing Reactor No 3 shortly after 09:00 local time The sight of steam rising is worrying because it means somewhere inside the reactor building water is boiling, says the BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Tokyo. The badly damaged reactors are supposed to be in what is called "cold shutdown"; the temperature of the cooling water inside the reactor should be well below boiling point. It is another sign that Tepco still does not fully know what is going on inside the damaged reactors, our correspondent adds. Steam was last seen rising from a reactor building at the plant on 18 July
BBC 8 Nov 2013: Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from inside Reactor Building 4 at Fukushima..... It comes down to what is, in the next few weeks, going to start happening inside one building at the destroyed nuclear plant. ... So what can I report? Mainly that I feel somewhat reassured by what I have seen. The preparations for the fuel removal appear meticulous.
By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC News 1 October 2013 1. Firstly, Fukushima was not an unavoidable natural disaster. - there was no plan for how to deal with such a large and complex disaster. ( "a one-in-1,000-year probability") - the nuclear power industry "captured" the bureaucracy that was supposed to regulate it - the whole town was far too trusting 2. Cleaning up a nuclear disaster is extremely difficult. - just how complex only becomes apparent when you see how it is done - large areas (e.g. forests) may have to be declared out of bounds for decades (cannot be cleaned) - the waste (and this article does not even mention the leaks)
RT.com 4.1.14: "As TEPCO began preparations for the cleaning of the drainage system with tons of leaked radioactive water at the Fukushima power plant,a former employee reveals the reason for so many leaks was cost cutting measures such as using duct tape,Asahi reported."