US to send (specialized, Marine) emergency response unit to Japan

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/31_30.html

US to send emergency response unit to Japan

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The US military is sending Marines specialized in responding to nuclear emergencies to Japan to help deal with the trouble at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Japan's Self-Defense Force Joint Chief of Staff Ryoichi Oriki announced the measure on Thursday.

Oriki said US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has approved the sending of the 140-member Chemical Biological Incident Response Force.

The unit is trained in search-and-rescue operations and clearing highly radioactive nuclear materials.

…

Thursday, March 31, 2011 19:36 +0900 (JST)

[Angry Dragon]

1. I wonder if they ever had to clean up a reactor

let alone 6

[Roselma]

2. No...they will not be doing remediation at the plants.

This is my son's battalion out of Indian Head. They've been on alert since the first warnings of potential problems with the power plants right after the earthquake/tsunami. They have unique capabilities (with robots) to do certain remediation functions, but won't be doing that in this particular deployment. Instead, they will provide specialized decontamination, environmental evaluation, and other tasks outside of the hot zone. My son won't be going on this deployment, nor will most of the Marines in his battalion.

[Kolesar]

4. Thank your son for all of us at DU

:thumbsup:

[Peace Patriot]

3. "Kan & Sarkozy to cooperate in handling nuke crisis"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x285002

As I said in the thread on French announced aid, I really don't understand why this didn't happen weeks ago--U.S., France, the international community rallying to this nuke crisis. And I'm afraid that is has to do with PRIVATE ENTERPRISE--the Japanese government and others deferring to Tepco, with Tepco LYING about the magnitude of the crisis and trying to "save" its billion-dollar plant, as the cost of workers' lives, lives in the neighborhood and who knows how many other lives and ecosystems to come.