Fukushima leak is 'much worse than we were led to believe'

I'm so fucking sick of this. This level of ass-clownery makes Japan look so bad, and so diminishes its national prestige in the world, that it's almost like when Bush the junior was president of the USA.

Yes, TEPCO is a private company. But it reflects on Japan the same way it would if the US government just left BP and Halliburton to decide entirely for themselves how to clean up the New Horizon oil rig disaster, with no meaningful oversight nor repercussions.

Except that the Fukushima disaster is about 100 times worse than the New Horizon spill.

TEPCO should have been nationalized, or at least put into a decade of receivership, within a few days of the fail, when it became clear that they were completely unequipped to deal with a disaster of this magnitude and their president checked himself into a hospital for stress/mental issues.

Yes, it's not about public/private. At a certain "screw-up" level, it doesn't matter anymore.

This is a Japanese problem, but it's close to becoming a worldwide problem

The containment has failed, as the leaks show, now what's the solution for that? Can we just pour tons and tons of sand on top so it melts and becomes a glass cocoon? (I don't know)

Or it has breached the soil?

Honestly, this is just business as usual for Japanese govt/bureaucracy here. The only difference is that it's the first time in a while that its bullshittery has been thrust onto the international stage.

If you're living in Japan or are any how strongly affiliated with it, you'd have to be a moron or just hopelessly incurably optimistic to believe anything the government or these pseudo governmental organizations say about anything remotely controversial. I've never trusted any statements or numbers issued by any Japanese entity since day 1. Since I can't trust anything, I just largely stay out of the country. Of course, its waste waters are being dumped into the ocean all the time so I'm getting owned anyways across the ocean.

Any HNer knowledgeable on the matter shed light into how bad this can get?

Why is the japanese government letting TEPCO deal with the disaster on their own? Why is the rest of the world letting Japan deal with the disaster on it's own? Contaminating the Pacific Ocean constantly with radioactive water surely affects a lot of other states.

This is something experts (TEPCO is obviously not in this position) should handle. The bill for handling the disaster could then be presented at a later time to TEPCO and Japan.