Firstly, Fukushima was not an unavoidable natural disaster. For many outside Japan it is easy to draw the conclusion that Fukushima is unique, as very few places experience such huge earthquakes and tsunamis as Japan. So, the logic goes, there are no real lessons to be learned for other countries.
Much the same was said after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine in 1986. Chernobyl was a bad design, a similar accident could not happen in Japan, which has Western-designed reactors. But it did.
Prof Kiyoshi Kurokawa chaired the Japanese parliamentary inquiry in to the Fukushima disaster and his conclusions are devastating. It was, he told me: "Man-made, and made in Japan."
Tatsujiro Suzuki, the deputy head of Japan's Atomic Energy Commission, has also been damning.
"There were studies which showed a one-in-1,000-year probability of the Fukushima coast being hit by a 10m tsunami," he said. "Unfortunately, those studies were dismissed. The nuclear industry didn't think it would happen, so they didn't prepare for it," he said.
'Too trusting'
An investigation by Japan's NHK broadcaster last year found that simple equipment, things like mobile generators and battery packs that could have helped prevent the meltdowns, were sitting at a depot just 25 miles (40km) from the Fukushima plant.
After the tsunami knocked out the plant's electrical system there was still time to bring in the back-up equipment. Army helicopters were on standby. But there was no plan. Chaos ensued.
A senior company official in charge of logistics was asked by the NHK team why he had not dispatched the equipment. "We had a very long list of things they needed. We had no way to prioritise which should go first," he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment