information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
11 Mai 2015
May 11, 2015
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150511p2a00m0na008000c.html
Six of 12 power companies surveyed by the Mainichi Shimbun have still not created manuals for compensating victims of nuclear disasters, despite the government urging them to do so for more than five years, it has been learned.
Furthermore, out of the six companies that have manuals, only one created or updated it after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. This shows that as the government's review of the compensation system fails to make progress, work on compensation manuals by power companies has also stalled.
After the 1999 JCO criticality accident in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology created an operation manual for nuclear compensation in December 2009. It includes the steps taken between a nuclear disaster and agreements on compensation, and informs nuclear companies that they are expected to be in communication with parties relevant to compensation even before a disaster has happened. The manual was distributed to power companies, and in March 2010 a briefing was held for them.
The ministry manual calls on each power company to create its own compensation manual. "Organize the system, procedure, document style and other details for compensation procedures to allow it to be done properly, and share this information across your organization in a form like a manual," the ministry manual says.
It also reads, "It is desirable to have the manual updated after a regular period like two to three years." It says the technology ministry will "provide support for creating the manuals."
The Mainichi Shimbun surveyed 12 businesses including nine major power companies with nuclear power plants and received answers from all of them by this April. The companies that said they had created manuals were Tohoku, Kansai, Shikoku, and Kyushu Electric Power Co., The Japan Atomic Power Co. and Japan Atomic Energy Agency. Tokyo Electric Power Co. responded that the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred while it was putting together its manual, and it has been dealing with compensation for the disaster without a manual.
While a Diet decision on the Nuclear Damage Compensation Facilitation Corporation Act of August 2011 called for an utter renewal of the nuclear accident compensation system in about a year's time, serious discussions have yet to begin. In January this year, it was finally decided that the Japan Atomic Energy Commission would be the site of the discussions.
Among companies that had not created a manual yet, Chubu Electric Power Co. said, "We will consider it, while taking into account factors like the national government's policy," while Kyushu Electric Power Co., which had created a manual, said, "We recognize the need to reflect the (Fukushima) disaster in our manual, but the national government has not organized its policy."
Meanwhile, this year Shikoku Electric Power Co. created a compensation manual without waiting for the national government to review the compensation system. In response to the Mainichi Shimbun survey, it said, "Taking into account the Fukushima disaster, we defined that compensation procedures should account for the scale of a disaster's damage and the situation under which it occurred, and work for the convenience of disaster victims."
Kansai Electric Power Co. responded to the survey but did not answer whether it has updated its compensation manual.
The technology ministry's department on nuclear disaster compensation said it did not have a complete understanding of the state of power companies' compensation manuals. A representative said, however, "We do not consider the review of the compensation system and the restarting of nuclear power plants to be related."
May 11, 2015(Mainichi Japan)
/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.over-blog.com%2Ft%2Fcedistic%2Fcamera.png)