The Fukushima Nuclear Accidents Investigation Committee of Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) released June 20 its final report on the result of the internal investigation and verification of the accident at the Fukushima I nuclear power station. As the causes of the accident, the report concluded, “The possible scale of tsunami had been underestimated and the level of preparedness was insufficient for dealing with the enormous tsunami.” With respect to the intervention made by then prime minister Naoto Kan and his office at the accident site, the report denounced their move for having “compounded unnecessary confusion during the emergency response efforts.”
As a party to the Fukushima accident, TEPCO set up an internal committee in June last year to investigate the accident. The committee released its interim report in December, and has been carrying out the investigation and verification of issues that had not previously been addressed. The recently released final report explains, “We, as a member of the nuclear industry, failed to foresee an event far exceeding the postulated events, which have been the benchmark for planning safety measures,” citing it as the root cause of the accident. It also admits, “Our estimation used in preparing for a nuclear disaster was also inadequate,” and “practical strategies for responding to a disaster were insufficient as we failed to envisage the actual conditions of the accident site.”
As regards the intervention by the former prime minister’s office, the report stated, “Starting on the early morning of March 12, specific instructions, which were seriously out of touch with the actual situation of the accident site, were made directly and indirectly.” It further pointed out that such intervention “only placed the plant manager [of Fukushima I] in a dilemma, and did effectively nothing to improve the result of the containment of the crisis.”
In response to the argument that the lack of information coming out of TEPCO left the prime minister’s office no other option but to intervene, the report countered that the PM’s office did not use the pre-arranged communication route from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry or the information available from the crisis management center. It also stressed that by utilizing the video conference system of the PM’s office or other means, “senior government officials at the office would have been able to obtain information in earlier stages and respond more adequately to the situation.”
