The nuclear industry
is constantly reassuring the public that
its reactors are
safe. But, as the nuclear disaster in Japan
continues to unfold, the evidence mounts
that these assurances frequently can’t be
trusted at all and that in Japan in particular,
the nuclear industry and the government
have failed in their duty to protect the
Japanese people.
Media reports on this
week's publication of Tokyo Electric Power
(TEPCO) manuals said the documents show
that ‘the utility's lack of preparedness
for an emergency’ was ‘a major factor leading
to the meltdowns after the March 11 quake-tsunami’,
so it’s no wonder the company had previously
refused to make the full documents public.
It was Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety
Agency that demanded disclosure.
This sounded terribly
familiar to us…
In July 2007, the Chuetsu
offshore earthquake shut down TEPCO’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
nuclear power plant in western Japan. The
quake turned over containers of nuclear
waste, causing a release of radioactivity
into the atmosphere. Radioactive water leaked
inside several of the reactor buildings,
some of it reaching the Sea of Japan.
According to Japan’s
Daily Yomiuri, ‘it was discovered that TEPCO
did not thoroughly survey faults near the
[Kashiwazaki-Kariwa] nuclear plant and its
earthquake-resistance measures were insufficient’.
This was after the company admitted in 2002
to deliberately falsifying safety reports
and covering up a large number of incidents
at its reactors. The scandal, dating back
to the 1980s and through the 11000's, showed
TEPCO’s failure to conduct vital safety
inspections at their nuclear reactors.
So we see that TEPCO
has a long history of being wholly unprepared
for emergencies and ignoring safety concerns.
Not only that, Japan’s nuclear watchdogs
have failed time and time again to ensure
that TEPCO lived up to rigorous and vital
safety standards. And now media are reporting
evidence of government organisations that
should be regulating the nuclear industry
attempting to manipulate public opinion
in its favour.
Even worse, ‘there are
no legal requirements to re-evaluate site
related (safety) features periodically,’
as the Japanese government told the International
Atomic Energy Agency in 2008. In October
this year, a report showed that TEPCO had
known since 2008 that the Fukushima Daiichi
plant was vulnerable to a tsunami but hid
the findings and did nothing to improve
the plant’s defences or emergency planning.
They weren’t legally obliged to..
The catastrophic safety
failures at Fukushima are a direct result
of cost and corner cutting by TEPCO and
disgraceful failure to regulate effectively
by the government. It’s symbolic of the
systematic failures of the nuclear industry
and governments worldwide to ensure proper
safety levels are strictly followed. Given
the scale of destruction a nuclear disaster
presents what we have seen in Japan is a
shameful failure of leadership, accountability
and respect for the lives of others.
Now we hear that the
amount of radiation released by the Fukushima
reactors was double that claimed by the
government. Japan’s Prime Minister Noda
should announce that Japan’s nuclear experiment
has failed utterly and immediately abandon
any plans to restart old reactors or to
complete any partially-built ones.
We must never forget
that while TEPCO and the government enjoyed
its cosy relationship and ignored safety
warnings. Given the siting of the Fukushima
plant in a fault zone, thedisaster that
has devastated the lives of thousands of
people was inevitable. Japan will be living
with the terrible consequences of this deceit
for a very long time.
