IAEA chief: no "business as usual" after Fukushima

Apr 4, 2011, 10:54 GMT

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano before the IAEA fifth review conference on the Convention on Nuclear Safety in Vienna, Austria, 04 April 2011. The meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA, which is scheduled until 14 April, will largely discuss the situation around the destroyed nuclear reactors in Fukushima. EPA/HERBERT PFARRHOFER

Vienna - Nuclear power must be made safer to prevent accidents like the one in Japan, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano said Monday at the start of a nuclear safety conference in Vienna.

'We cannot take a 'business as usual' approach,' Amano said at the fifth review conference on the Convention on Nuclear Safety. 'The worries of millions of people throughout the world about whether nuclear energy is safe must be taken seriously.'

The conference was convened before the Fukushima 1 nuclear power plant was crippled by a massive earthquake and tsunami last month, and participants did not expect it to bring about immediate changes in the international nuclear security framework.

However, conference chairman Li Ganjie from China said several topics related to that nuclear accident should be considered, including preparation for worst-case disasters, protection of the public and communication in emergencies.

'We shall learn lessons from the Fukushima nuclear accident and review our work to see whether there is need for adjustments,' said Li, who heads China's National Nuclear Safety Administration.

While most of the 10-day conference is devoted to reviewing nuclear safety in the convention's 72 signatory states, Amano has convened a special ministerial meeting on the Fukushima accident from June 20-24 at the IAEA's seat in Vienna.

That meeting is to deal with improving protection of nuclear plants against multiple hazards, protection of nuclear fuel, and measures against power failures that have caused nuclear material to overheat at Fukushima, said Amano, who is Japanese.

'It is clear that more needs to be done to strengthen the safety of nuclear power pants so that the risk of a future accident is significantly reduced,' Amano said.

The nuclear safety convention was developed in reaction to the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in the Ukraine. It went into force ten years later.

All countries with nuclear power programmes have signed it, except Iran.

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