No meltdown in disaster dimulations

June 30, 2012

Meltdown scenario excluded from nation's emergency drill plan

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120630p2g00m0dm050000c.html

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A government-affiliated body tasked with planning what was to be the nation's first nuclear emergency drill following the core meltdowns last year at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant omitted a reactor meltdown scenario from its disaster simulations, according to a draft obtained by Kyodo News.

While the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization said such a simulation "would stir concerns among local residents," the exclusion of the meltdown scenario from the disaster prevention drill has been criticized as an inadequate crisis response.

The organization has provided working-level support to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, and will be integrated into the "nuclear regulatory agency," the secretariat to support a "nuclear regulatory commission," which will be newly created as a body with a high degree of independence, based on a law enacted on June 20.

The Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization compiled the draft plan for fiscal 2011 at the order of the NISA.

Kyodo News obtained the draft through a freedom-of-information request, although the drill, which had been initially scheduled to be carried out last fiscal year, never went ahead.

According to a disclosed document dated July 4 last year, the plan for the drill said it simulates neither core damage or meltdown, nor a hydrogen explosion.

It also said the decision whether to simulate the release of radioactive materials in staging the drill was up to each local government.

Examining the draft, a NISA official told the organization a draft plan cannot exclude simulations of a meltdown and hydrogen explosion, although the official did not order it to be revised, according to the agency.

The emergency drill was first introduced after the Nuclear Disaster Special Measures Law was enacted following the fatal 1999 criticality incident at a nuclear fuel processing firm in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture.