Chernobyl recovery officer criticizes Japan's 'slow motion' efforts at Fukushima

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Soviet efforts to contain the Chernobyl nuclear disaster were much better than Japan's 'slow-motion' response to the disaster at Fukushima nuclear plant, according to a leading member of the 1986 recovery team.

During an interview on the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl on Monday, Colonel-General Nikolai Antoshkin said he was shocked at how poorly Japan had coped with its own nuclear disaster.

"Right at the start when there was not yet a big leak of radiation they (the Japanese) wasted time. And then they acted in slow-motion," The Telegraph quoted, Antoshkin as saying.

The Soviets had evacuated 44,600 people within two-an- a-half hours and put them up in 'normal comfortable conditions' on the same day, he recalled.

"Look at advanced Japan. People are housed in stadiums and are lying about on the floors of sports halls in unhygienic conditions," said Antoshkin.

Antoshkin said he thought Japanese were simply unable to cope on their own, they do not have enough strength or means and they need to ask the international community for help.

"I think Japanese catastrophe is already more serious than Chernobyl. The main thing is that they do not allow it to become three, four or five times more serious," he added.