It's interesting to see how this going. The quantities involved are hard to put into context, but I get the impression that the story would be very different if this reactor had been somewhere upwind of Japan's major cities, such as in the Fukuoka area.
It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.
—John Steinbeck, Cannery Row