Japanese PM: Nuclear crisis under control

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Wednesday that the containment of accumulated radioactive water in the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant was "under control." Speaking at a plenary session in the lower house, the prime minister said the government will continue its endeavors to tackle the problem from a number of fronts, adding that as a whole the situation was under control. Abe's comments run contrary to the utility's own analysis of the situation, with its president Naomi Hirose telling the government and the Nuclear Regulatory Authority recently that the Fukushima facility is undermanned and under-skilled due to non- contract workers being drafted in to boost numbers and that the morale of its workers is desperately low. Hirose's fears follow those made by Kazuhiko Yamashita, an executive at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), who admitted to a group of opposition lawmakers on Sept. 13. that the massive radioactive water buildup at the Daiichi plant is "not under control." Abe's continued and seemingly unwavering assessment of the situation at the plant was called facetious by Banri Kaieda, head of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan on Wednesday. Kaieda said that the prime minister's continued comments that the situation is "under control," when hundreds of tons of radioactive water have leaked into the Pacific Ocean, containment tanks on the plant are almost maxed-out, multiple leaks have sprung and the utility's workers themselves have caused cooling operations to be shut down, overfilled toxic tanks and pulled out pipes dousing themselves in radiation, were "extremely flippant."