The United States sent a special nuclear response team to Japan right after the Fukushima meltdown disaster started in March 2011, but Japan was slow to make use of radiation data from the unit, according to U.S. and Japanese government sources.
This dispatch of the Consequence Management Response Team was the first approved for an emergency outside the United States. The CMRT, affiliated with the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous agency of the Energy Department, is tasked with dealing with nuclear accidents and terrorism in the U.S. by detecting and analyzing radiation contamination.
The Japanese government, however, did not acknowledge the significance of the team's mission and failed to immediately utilize the initial data it provided for evacuating residents living around Fukushima No. 1.