U.S. nuclear special team sent to Japan right after 3.11

The United States sent a special nuclear response team trained to handle nuclear accidents and terrorism to Japan right after the outbreak of the March 2011 nuclear disaster, but Japan was slow to make use of radiation data from the unit, according to U.S. and Japanese government sources.

This was the first dispatch of the Consequence Management Response Team (CMRT) for an emergency outside the United States. The team, affiliated with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous agency of the Energy Department, is tasked with dealing with nuclear accidents and terrorism in the United States by detecting and analyzing radiation contamination.

The Japanese government, however, did not acknowledge the significance of the team's mission and failed to immediately utilize the initial data provided by the team for evacuation of residents living around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
[link to english.kyodonews.jp]
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