They certainly were not good enough at Fukushima, in a half-dozen particulars.

The next pile of reactors down the coast did not melt down, solely on the strength of a single engineer who succeeded, with enormous difficulty, in upholding standards management objected to, but that he knew were essential. Without him, there would now be two major uninhabitable areas there. He must have known Fukushima would melt down, and must have wanted it held to the same standard as his, but lacked authority to extend his standard so far.