IN a small office in the Nishi Shimbashi district of Tokyo, a major plan is being hatched. Within the 6 x 4-meter building, a group of elderly men from the corps of skilled veterans are putting together a proposal with fatal consequences, namely collecting volunteers who are prepared to die. They plan to be sent in to repair the Daiichi nuclear energy power station in Fukushima Prefecture that was hit by the tsunami of March 11.

Yasuteru Yamada