I just dug this up and haven't watched it yet.
In this special documentary, NHK interviewed more than 200 people including government and TEPCO officials, experts, and engineers.
While reluctant, they agreed to speak with NHK. Some of the rather candid comments confirm that TEPCO, nor the Japanese government where adequately prepared for a disaster of this magnitude. The Economy, Trade, and Industry Minister, Banri Kaieda even made a rather damning remark (around the 4m30s mark in clip 1-A) that he could not deny there was a myth of safety regarding the nuclear power plants and that probably somewhere in their minds, they always felt that measures against emergency situations were unnecessary because such situations would never occur. This 1 hour video is split into 4 parts and hosted on Dailymotion (so you'll need to put up with the advertisements automatically displayed) since it is blocked on YouTube.
Editorial note: At least to me, this wreaks of extreme overconfidence and arrogance and puts into context the sort of thought processes which were occurring early on until those involved finally realized the gravity of the crisis being beyond anything they could realistically imagine (and just how much officials underestimated the problems from the beginning).
http://www.nippon-sekai.com/main/articl ... is-part-1/This is the 2nd part of a nuclear crisis documentary by NHK, where the impact of radiation contamination is found to be growing.
4 months after the March 11th quake and tsunami, researchers and scientists now have a far clearer picture of the events surrounding the Dai-ichi nuclear power plant and the amounts of radioactivity released into the environment. As noted in part 1, officials severely underestimated the crisis at the power plant and were essentially complicit in their failure to act in a more decisive and urgent manner. Furthermore, the reported amounts and spread of radioactive fallout were also underestimated.
Scientists are now beginning to understand how radioactive contamination spread after they were released from the power plant and the picture is not proving to be pretty. Further monitoring is uncovering radioactive hotspots throughout the Tokyo metropolitan area. This special documentary looks further into the growing impact of radiation from the Dai-ichi nuclear power plant by starting out from the areas adjacent to the crippled power plant, then out to a 100km (62 miles) radius, and then areas beyond where some of these hotspots have been found.
This 50 minute video is split into 4 parts and hosted on Dailymotion (so you'll need to put up with the advertisements automatically displayed) since this video is blocked on YouTube.
Editorial note: I've been critical of NHK in the past for essentially being a mouthpiece of the government (since they are Japan's public braodcaster) where they essentially "towed the line". After the events of March 11th, there has been a growing critical tone in some of NHK's reporting surrounding the nuclear crisis; something which is quite evident in this special documentary.
http://www.nippon-sekai.com/main/articl ... is-part-2/This is the 3rd part of the nuclear crisis coverage by NHK, where a panel discusses whether or not nuclear energy is really needed in Japan.
The discussions were originally aired on July 9th and 10th. Section 1 is 75 minutes while Section 2 is 80 minutes. Both sections are split into 2 parts and once again, hosted on Dailymotion since these are blocked on YouTube (and as usual, Dailymotion inserts advertisements into these longer videos so you'll need to put up with them). Pro-tip: if you use Safari (Mac or Windows) and install the Click2Flash extension, the video will load via HTML5 and no annoying advertisements will interrupt the stream.
http://www.nippon-sekai.com/main/articl ... is-part-3/