Inquiry lambasts nuke plant operator, Japanese government

Dec 26, 2011, 13:42 GMT

Tokyo - An investigation released Monday into the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl blasted the Japanese government and the power plant operator concerned for mistakes made before and after the March incident.

An independent committee, headed by engineering professor Yotaro Hatamura, was commissioned to investigate the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station by the government in May.

Its inquiry found that the Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) and the government's nuclear regulator were completely unprepared for a disaster the size of the March 11 magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami and what it might do to nuclear reactors, according to local media.

The proper response mechanisms weren't in place and what planning had been done wasn't always implemented.

The 507-page preliminary report into the accident also criticized TEPCO for saying it could not prepare for the unimaginable, saying it was responsible for planning for such an unexpected disaster, given its disastrous consequences.

'Even if it is a phenomenon with a very low probability of occurring, it does not mean that you can ignore it,' its report said. 'If an irreversible situation is going to happen, ... measures should be taken to prevent the situation.'

The emergency response was also hampered by poor communications and coordination, it said.

The 10-metre-high waves of the tsunami swamped the coastal plant 250 kilometres north-east of Tokyo, shutting off its cooling systems.

The nuclear reactors overheated, leading to meltdowns in three of its six reactors, explosions and fires and releasing radioactive materials into the environment.

About 160,000 residents living within 20 kilometres of the plant were evacuated and have yet to return home.

TEPCO 'had not expected a situation in which all power sources would be lost at multiple reactors simultaneously due to an extremely severe natural disaster, and it had not provided enough training and education to respond to this situation,' the report said.

Workers mistakenly believed a cooling system was functioning in reactor number one, causing a delay in the dispatch of fire trucks that eventually sprayed and cooled down the reactor, it said.

In reactor number three, workers stopped an emergency cooling system without reporting it, the investigation found.

If both problems had not occurred, the damage to the reactors could have been lessened and a smaller amount of radioactivity would likely have been released, the report said.

The government's nuclear power regulator, the Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency, left the plant after the disaster and, when ordered to return, provided little help to TEPCO, according to the inquiry, which was based on 900 hours of interviews with 456 people involved in the accident.

TEPCO was slow in relaying information about the accident to the government, the government performed poorly in gathering information and the industry ministry did not send personnel to TEPCO's headquarters to improve the situation, said the investigation committee.

Some residents were evacuated into areas hit by the radioactive fallout, it said, while criticizing the government for issuing imprecise evacuation orders and failing to promptly alert all the communities affected.

The inquiry found that when the power went out at the Fukushima plant, staff had to resort to using flashlights and could not recharge their mobile phones, cutting communications between them and the emergency response office at the plant.

TEPCO itself has said it made no operational errors in the wake of the accident, the worst since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine. The investigative panel found, however, that it remained responsible.

A full report by Hatamura's committee - which also includes a mayor from Fukushima prefecture, a nuclear medicine expert, a former prosecutor, a retired judge and academics - was expected in the summer after it has had time to interview government officials, including then-prime minister Naoto Kan.