Japan’s nuclear regulator may have contributed to last year’s nuclear disaster by rejecting global standards for disaster response out of fear doing so would undermine public trust, Trade Minister Yukio Edano says.
The blocking of the measures, revealed in documents released this week, was the latest sign of lax nuclear oversight that critics have blamed for a failure to prepare for a disaster on the scale of the one at the Fukushima nuclear plant.
On March 11 last year, a magnitude 9 earthquake triggered a tsunami that hit Japan’s northeast coast, overwhelming a 10 metre (30 foot) breakwater at the Fukushima plant, knocking out cooling systems and triggering meltdowns.
But five years earlier, the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency (NISA) said Japan’s disaster prevention measures were fine and the regulator urged that consideration of adopting global standards be dropped.
“No problems can be found in our country’s existing disaster prevention measures,” NISA said in a June 2006 document addressed to another panel, the Nuclear Safety Commission, that was considering introducing the standards.
“Making significant changes to the existing disaster prevention scheme risks triggering societal confusion and increasing public worries over nuclear safety.
“Therefore, we would like (the Commission) to freeze consideration (of global standards),” NISA said in a separate memo to the commission dated April, 2006.
In the end, the standards drawn up by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, which would have expanded the scope of designated disaster response areas, were not introduced.
The Fukushima disaster shattered public trust in atomic power and in the country’s leaders. The documents, released according to the law in response to a request for disclosure, are likely to reinforce many people’s doubts.
"Another disaster can happen"
“NISA bears great responsibility for not having been able to prevent the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident,” Trade Minister Edano, who oversees the safety agency and energy policy, told a news conference.
“In considering what led to the disaster, there were several key factors ... and it is quite possible that this issue may have directly contributed,” he said, referring to the failure to adopt global standards.
NISA official Yoshinori Moriyama told a news conference on Thursday the agency had at the time not responded adequately to global trends, and that was cause for reflection, the Mainichi newspaper reported.
NISA is set to be separated from the Trade Ministry under legislation pending in parliament.
Fukushima’s damaged reactors spewed radiation across eastern Japan, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes and contaminating food and water. Many evacuees were exposed to radiation as they fled and dozens of patients died during evacuation from hospitals because of a lack of medical care.
In the latest sign of public frustration, a group of Fukushima residents is planning to file a criminal complaint against executives of Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima plant, as well as government officials responsible for overseeing nuclear safety, an organiser said.
The group aims to bring together about 1000 Fukushima prefecture residents to ask prosecutors to charge Tepco executives and government officials with negligence leading to death or injury, organiser Kazuyoshi Sato told Reuters.
“Everyone including children were exposed to radiation, but no one has taken any responsibility,” said Sato, a local assembly member.
“Unless there is a system in which someone can take responsibility, ... another disaster like this can take place.”
- Times Live
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