Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: Behind Reactor Battle, a Legion of Grunts, at the Wall Street Journal:

The glory, such as it is, for battling blazes and radiation leaks at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex has belonged to firefighters, soldiers and a corps of plant workers dubbed the Fukushima 50.
But much of the grinding grunt work of taming Japan's worst nuclear accident has fallen to a less-visible group—hundreds of industry foot soldiers who support the effort by carrying pipes, clearing debris and performing other manual labor amid the threat of elevated radiation.
In normal times, thousands of workers perform routine tasks of reactor maintenance at the Fukushima Daiichi complex. Now, many of them are being called to volunteer to work, at standard pay, at the troubled plant.
"I'm scared," says Kenji Tada, 29 years old, a worker at protective-coating specialist Tokai Toso Co. "But someone has to go."
Mr. Tada's normal job includes painting corroded spots on reactor equipment. On Monday, he is scheduled to join several hundred other workers who will be on call for duty at the compound. Some are engineers and operations specialists. Others will drag electrical cables, hook up water pipes or otherwise provide on-the-ground muscle in the effort to bring the overheating reactors under control.

It is fascinating to read what these guys are doing, and how matter-of-fact they are.  I didn't realize when this started that it would drag on for weeks.  I figured that either it would meltdown quickly or it would be brought under control.  Shows what I know.