The Abe administration is recklessly trying to restart nuclear reactors across Japan without learning lessons from the Fukushima crisis and failing to prepare effective countermeasures against another potential disaster, a former accident panel chief said.
The Abe administration is recklessly trying to restart nuclear reactors across Japan without learning lessons from the Fukushima crisis and failing to prepare effective countermeasures against another potential disaster, a former accident panel chief said.
Yotaro Hatamura, former chairman of a government panel that investigated the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, said in a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun that the atmosphere surrounding nuclear power is returning to the pre-disaster days of complacency.
“Sufficient investigations have not been conducted,” Hatamura, professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at the University of Tokyo, said of the Fukushima nuclear accident.
In its final report submitted in July 2012, the panel led by Hatamura called on the government to continue efforts to determine the cause of the nuclear disaster.
“Almost none of (our proposals) have been reflected” in recent government actions, he said.
Tougher safety standards for nuclear facilities were introduced after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, led to the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. But with the exception of this “regulatory hurdle,” he said, “the situation seems unchanged from before the accident.”
“It does not appear that organizations to watch (government actions) are working properly,” he said in the interview.
Hatamura also said that people once again believe that nuclear plants are safe although the problems related to these facilities have only been addressed superficially.
“There could always be lapses in oversight in safety assessments, and an accident will surely happen again,” Hatamura said.
Among the countermeasures needed, he said, are effective evacuation plans for residents living near nuclear plants throughout the country. He said the feasibility of current evacuation plans is doubtful because they were compiled without fully reflecting on the Fukushima accident.
“The restarts of reactors should be declared only after sufficient preparations are made, such as conducting evacuation drills covering all residents living within 30 kilometers of each plant based on developed evacuation plans,” he said.
According to Hatamura, Japanese citizens need to prepare for future nuclear disasters if the nation continues nuclear power generation.
“Even before the Fuskushima disaster, I thought it was inappropriate to state that an accident would never occur,” Hatamura said. “And the Fukushima crisis, in fact, did happen.”
Most people in Japanese society did not view the issue of nuclear plants as their problem and had only looked at the benefits of nuclear energy until the Fukushima disaster, he said.
“They believed what they wanted to believe--nuclear plants were safe just because there had been no severe accidents and those facilities had undergone safety screenings,” Hatamura said. “It is wrong to end the problem by passing the buck to someone else when an accident occurs.”
(This article was compiled from reports by Keiji Takeuchi, Toshio Kawada and Tsuyoshi Nagano.)