Is Japan's leadership changing?

In many ways, Japan is still reeling from the devastating earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011, and the nuclear crisis and huge leaks of radiation it set off. The earthquake and tsunami, which killed as many as 20,000 people, led to soul searching in a nation already worn down by two lost decades of economic growth, a rapidly aging and shrinking population, political paralysis and the rapid rise of its longtime rival, China. When the earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, it churned up a devastating tsunami that swept over cities and farmland in the northern part of the country and prompted warnings as far away as the West Coast of the United States and South America. Recorded at 9.0 on the Richter scale, it was the most powerful quake ever to hit Japan.


As the nation struggled with a rescue effort, it also faced the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986.  Explosions and leaks of radioactive gas took place in three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station that suffered partial meltdowns, while spent fuel rods at another reactor overheated and caught fire, releasing radioactive material directly into the atmosphere. Japanese officials turned to increasingly desperate measures, as traces of radiation were found in Tokyo’s water and in water pouring from the reactors into the ocean. In interviews and public statements, some current and former government officials admitted that Japanese authorities engaged in a pattern of withholding damaging information and denying facts of the nuclear disaster — in order, some of them said, to limit the size of costly and disruptive evacuations in land-scarce Japan and to avoid public questioning of the powerful nuclear industry. The crisis led to a change in leadership,..!

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cortesia NYT



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