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<p>{From
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,750773,00.html"><http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,750773,00.html></a>.]<br>
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<p>...The fact that Japan, which was once considered a miracle
economy, was on the verge of a nuclear disaster could be far more
devastating to the nuclear industry than the Soviet reactor
catastrophe in Chernobyl could ever have been a quarter century
ago.</p>
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Admittedly, Japan is in an earthquake zone, which puts it at greater
risk than countries like Germany and France. But Japan also happens
to be a leading industrialized nation, a country where well-trained,
pedantically precise engineers build the world's most advanced and
reliable cars.
<p>When the Chernobyl accident occurred, Germany's nuclear industry
managed to convince itself, and German citizens, that aging
reactors and incapable, sloppy engineers in Eastern Europe were to
blame. Western reactors, or so the industry claimed, were more
modern, better maintained and simply safer.</p>
<p>It is now clear how arrogant this self-assured attitude is. If an
accident of this magnitude could happen in Japan, it can happen
just as easily in Germany. All that's needed is the right chain of
fatal circumstances. Fukushima is everywhere...</p>
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