Anger in Japan Over Withheld Radiation Forecasts – NYTimes.com

Such is the way of governments, no? A protective lie here, another there, and pretty soon even the bureaucrats and politicians forget they are insulating themselves from the world through  lies.

“From the 12th to the 15th we were in a location with one of the highest levels of radiation,” said Tamotsu Baba, the mayor of Namie, which is about five miles from the nuclear plant. He and thousands from Namie now live in temporary housing in another town, Nihonmatsu. “We are extremely worried about internal exposure to radiation.”

The withholding of information, he said, was akin to “murder.”

In interviews and public statements, some current and former government officials have 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 politically powerful nuclear industry.

via Anger in Japan Over Withheld Radiation Forecasts – NYTimes.com.