An aerial view shows the quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant in the Fukushima prefecture. Photo credit: Beacon Radio
The back ground
The worst nuclear disaster in decades, the meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant following the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, was man-made, according to the official report on the crisis, “that could and should have been foreseen and prevented”.
Three reactors were damaged after a massive earthquake struck off the northeast coast of the island nation, triggering a tsunami that swept miles inland. Within three days, all three damaged reactors’ cores melted down; more than 150,000 people were evacuated from the area, leaving behind a deadzone of abandoned lives, homes, and pets.
The damning report was presented to Japan’s legislature, the Diet, on Thursday, and includes a recommendation to strengthen government oversight over nuclear power activities in the future.
Read more about the Fukushima accident here.
What the panel found
But the investigating panel, commissioned by Japan’s Parliament, blamed a “collusion” between the government and the plant’s operators, TEPCO, as well as a culture of deference to authority, for the crisis. The panel found that a “corrupt” regulatory system allowed TEPCO to put off critical safety measures that would have prevented a natural disaster from becoming a massive, man-made nuclear disaster. The government, under former Prime Minister Naoto Kan, and the operator’s response to the emergency was equally lacking, and was not “effective in preventing or limiting the consequential damage.”
“What must be admitted — very painfully — is that this was a disaster ‘Made in Japan,’” Kiyoshi Kurokawa, the panel chairman and a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, declared in an accompanying statement. “Its fundamental causes are to be found in the ingrained conventions of Japanese culture: our reflexive obedience; our reluctance to question authority; our devotion to ‘sticking with the program’; our groupism; and our insularity.”
The latest reaction on Twitter to the report
The news has provoked anger and debate on Twitter, from those retweeting the damning report to those pleading the case for nuclear power.
#Kurokawa on #Fukushima: this is sensational stuff. Never seen criticism as direct as this from such a high level body.
— Richard Lloyd Parry (@dicklp) July 5, 2012
.@KiyoshiKurokawa‘s intro to NAIIC Fukushima report is a must-read. Most damning take yet on the disaster slideshare.net/jikocho/naiic-… p.9 #jikocho
— Hiroko Tabuchi (@HirokoTabuchi) July 5, 2012
Pls Japan, focus your angry energies to protest government and Tepco and how they handled Fukushima, NOT nuclear power as a whole!
— James Kay (@JCBKay) July 5, 2012
Inside the 12-mile exclusion zone
More on Fukushima
- Protest over plans to re-open Fukushima
- Would you drink water from Fukushima?
- Forty-five percent of children test positive for radiation in Fukushima
- Time to put the brakes on nuclear power?
