IAEA chief: Fukushima safety inadequate

Apr 4, 2011, 14:13 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 - Safety measures at the stricken Fukushima 1 power plant were not sufficient in hindsight, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano said Monday, toughening his stance against the power company that operates the plant.

One of the roles of the IAEA is to promote nuclear power, and the agency's director general said that the Fukushima accident poses a major challenge for the nuclear energy sector, especially in terms of public opinion.

'Whether this can be prevented in the future? I believe there are certain ways to avoid the repetition of such accidents,' the IAEA director general told reporters on the first day of a regular review conference on the Convention on Nuclear Safety in Vienna.

'Thinking retrospectively, the measures taken by the operator were not sufficient to prevent this accident,' he said.

The IAEA director general's statement marked a shift from his initial reaction after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, when he said that unprecedented natural forces were to blame for the situation at Fukushima, which is run by the Tokyo Electric Power Company.

Amano, who is Japanese, said power plants around the world must be made safer to prevent such accidents in the future.

'We cannot take a 'business as usual' approach,' he said. '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 on March 11, and participants did not expect it to bring about immediate changes in the international nuclear security framework.

However, conference chairman Li Ganjie from China suggested several topics related to Fukushima be considered at the 10-day meeting, 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 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.

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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