The Fukushima accident: ‘made in Japan’

By Michael Banks

The Fukushima nuclear accident last year “could and should have been foreseen and prevented” according to a report released yesterday by the 10-member Fukushima nuclear accident independent investigation commission. Chaired by Kiyoshi Kurokawa, former president of the Science Council of Japan, the report says the accident was a profoundly “man-made disaster” that was “made in Japan” and could have been mitigated by a more effective human response.

The 88-page English version of the report says the accident was the result of “collusion” between the government, regulators and the plant’s operators. “They effectively betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents,” the authors write.

In its introduction, Kurokawa writes that the commission’s report “catalogues a multitude of errors and wilful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared”. Kurokawa adds that the “fundamental” failures of the plant were because of the “ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflective obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity”.

The Fukushima nuclear accident was caused by an earthquake and tsunami of a scale not seen in more than 1000 years, which struck north-eastern Japan at 2.46 p.m. local time on 11 March 2011.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, located some 225 km north-east of Tokyo, seemed to withstand the 9.0 Richter-scale earthquake, with the three operating reactors turning off automatically as it struck. However, the tsunami that followed a few minutes later poured over a seawall designed to protect the nuclear plant from waves up to about 6 m high (the tsunami produced waves more than 14 m high).

The plant was then flooded, causing the back-up diesel generators to fail, and – with nothing to cool the reactors – their cores started to melt.

The report offers seven recommendations, including establishing a new regulator for nuclear power as well as a committee that would monitor this new body.

See also “In the wake of Fukushima” and “Lessons from Fukushima“.