When dire situations such as the disaster in Tohoku occur, blame is almost always linked to the government in one way or another, but an article in the Los Angeles Times infers otherwise. The article “Who’s to Blame for Fukushima” by Anupam Chander states that because the American company GE aided in the design of the affected reactors, it is necessary to assess their level of responsibility in the matter. Unfortunately for the Tokyo Power Electric Company, Japanese law states that liability rests solely in the hands of the operator rather than the designer, and so GE has escaped from this situation virtually unscathed while the Tokyo Power Electric Co. has suffered from significant losses, both monetary and otherwise.
I don’t feel that the author of this article is trying to exclusively blame GE for the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but I do believe that he wishes to encourage people to question the appropriateness of the Japanese government’s liability policy. Although the author does not directly criticize GE for developing faulty reactors and the incident took place solely on Japanese soil, I sense that he finds it unfair to blindly place all the blame on the operator when other forces may be at fault. While the author only demands that we take his words into consideration, however, thousands of victims are demanding monetary compensation from the Tokyo Power Electric Co., indicating that in the public eye blame has already been thrust upon a single or a few institutions. Whether or not this is the correct belief and action, it is clearly still quite difficult to determine, at least to me and the author of this article.
To read the article, click the link below:
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