Reply #10: An interesting point made by one of the authors (Adelstein) in the comments section

[kristopher]

He gets the information from an article in the Japanese press, and in his website it is discussed at greater length than the comments in the Atlantic Wire article. I've copied that section of his website entry here:

"The July 11 edition of the 週間エコノミスト (The Weekly Economist, a respected Japanese publication but not The Economist) has a long interview with Mitsuhiko Tanaka (田中三彦氏) a former nuclear reactor manufacturing technician, who in a very well-illustrated and annotated article makes a strong case that the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, run by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) had little to do with the tsunami and that the problem was that the plant did not withstand the earthquake. He asserts that multiple factors, including broken pipes and water circulation pumps, led to an LOCA, Loss of Coolant Accident. It is worth picking up and reading if you can read Japanese. He also makes a point that many overlook: the 9.0 earthquake epicenter was in Miyagi Prefecture, not Fukushima Prefecture. The magnitude of the earthquake at Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant was well under the threshold of what the the plant is supposed to be able to withstand."

http://www.japansubculture.com/
(Scroll past the first article to the entry titled, "Einstein, Insanity, Nuclear Meltdowns and Tokyo Electric Power Company: An op/ed"

Has anyone seen a report on the strength of the quake at the Fukushima Daiichi plant?