According to the report by a panel of experts in Japan, the Fukushima nuclear accident that occurred last year (2011) was a man-made accident that could have been avoided. The Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission panel’s report suggests that “the fundamental causes of the accident were all foreseeable”. Suggesting compromises on safety measures and procedures, the report stated that “Ingrained collusion between plant operator (Tokyo Electric Power Co. - TEPCO), the Government and the Regulators, combined with a lack of any effective oversight led directly to the worst nuclear accident in a generation”. "They effectively betrayed the nation's right to be safe from nuclear accidents” the report said.

In a further statement, the report says "We believe that the root causes were the organizational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions".

"Across the board, the Commission found ignorance and arrogance unforgivable for anyone or any organization that deals with nuclear power. We found a disregard for global trends and a disregard for public safety," the panel said. The panel’s report also disagrees with the verdict of three (3) previous reports of similar investigations carried out by the utility company (TEPCO), the government, and a private foundation that they found no evidence of major damage to reactor buildings and equipment at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station from 9.0 scale earthquake that preceded the tsunami. The previous reports stated that it was the 13 meters (43 feet) high tsunami that followed the earthquake that knocked out backup power generation and caused the meltdown of three of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors. Insisting that there is not enough substantive evidence to support that only the tsunami and not the earthquake caused the nuclear accident, the new report states: “We conclude that TEPCO was too quick to cite the tsunami as the cause of the nuclear accident and deny that the earthquake caused any damage,” The new report suggests that the 9.0 scale earthquake could have caused substantial damage to the Fukushima plants before the tsunami started. If this finding is right, it calls into question, the ability of the Fukushima plant and generally all the other nuclear plants in Japan to withstand earthquakes, noting that most regions of Japan are earthquake-prone. Mr. Najmedin Meshkati, a University of Southern California professor of civil engineering, while talking to Bloomberg, stated: “If this reactor got some damage because of the earthquake, we really need to go back and revisit some of our assumptions that we have for the design basis of other reactors,” The report also blames Japanese culture as contributing to the disaster. Kiyoshi Kurokawa, chairman of the 10-member Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, states, in the report’s introduction, "this was a disaster 'Made in Japan’,". "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". Another member of the commission, Shuya Nomura, said the report is intended to "shed light on Japan's wider structural problems". In the meantime, Japanese government has reopened the reactors (run by Kansai Electric Power Co.) at Ohi, Western Japan, which together with all the 50 nuclear reactors in Japan was shut down for routine maintenance but could not be easily re-opened because of public protests. Government opened the Ohi reactor giving reasons of power shortage and high costs of importing fossil fuels for thermal plants. Other issues raised in the report are: The very real possibility of a large tsunami ignored: The report states that “Since 2006, the regulators and TEPCO were aware of the risk that a total outage of electricity at the Fukushima Daiichi plant might occur if the tsunami were to reach the level of the site.” Lack of a good evacuation plan: The report states that “Only 20% of the residents of the town hosting the plant knew about the accident when evacuation from the 3-km zone was ordered at 9:23 p.m. on March 11.” Incomplete and poorly disseminated information about radiation after the event: The report states that “[The government] failed to explain … the risks of radiation exposure to different segments of the population, such as infants and youths, expecting mothers, or people particularly susceptible to the risks of radiation.” The insularity of Japan’s nuclear industry: The report states that “The regulators also had a negative attitude toward the importation of new advances in knowledge and technology from overseas. If [the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency] had passed on to TEPCO measures that were included in the B.5.b subsection of the U.S. security order that followed the 9/11 terrorist action, and if TEPCO had put the measures in place, the accident may have been preventable.” Fukushima accident was a major nuclear accident which led to the evacuation of over 150,000 people which may never be able to return to their homes due to the amiount of radiation released to the environment.

Related Stories / Other Sites:

• Fukushima Nuclear Accident Update Log
• International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale. Other links: INES HTML - (IAEA Website) or INES pdf - (IAEA Website)
• World Nuclear Association - Chernobyl Disaster
• Nuclear Energy
• Japan's Nuclear Crisis Raised to INES Scale 7.0, same scale as Chernobyl
• Japan shut down the last nuclear reactor - CNN
• Japan Nuclear Power Free After Shutdown of Last Reactor - Bloomberg News
• Chernobyl Nuclear Accident - April 26, 1986