Overblog
Editer l'article Suivre ce blog Administration + Créer mon blog
Le blog de fukushima-is-still-news

information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise

TEPCO accused of negligence over tsunami wall

April 11, 2018

 

 

TEPCO worker: Boss scrapped tsunami wall for Fukushima plant

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201804110051.html

 

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

 

An employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co. testified in court that his boss abruptly ended preparations in 2008 to build a seawall to protect the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant from a towering tsunami.

 

“It was unexpected,” the employee said of former TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto’s instructions during a hearing at the Tokyo District Court on April 10. “I was so disheartened that I have no recollection of what followed afterward at the meeting.”

 

Muto, 67, was deputy chief of the company’s nuclear power and plant siting division at the time.

 

He, along with Tsunehisa Katsumata, former TEPCO chairman, and Ichiro Takekuro, former TEPCO vice president, are now standing trial on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury over the 2011 nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

 

To prove negligence, prosecutors are trying to show that the top executives could have predicted the size of the tsunami that swamped the plant on March 11, 2011, resulting in the most serious nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

 

The employee was a member of a team tasked with compiling steps against tsunami at the earthquake countermeasures center that the utility set up in November 2007.

He reported directly to Muto.

 

According to the employee, TEPCO was considering additional safeguards on the instructions of the then Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency for all nuclear plant operators to review their anti-earthquake measures.

 

The group weighed its options based on a long-term assessment of the probability of major earthquakes released by the science ministry’s Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion in 2002.

 

The assessment pointed out that Fukushima Prefecture could be hit by a major tsunami.

Some experts were skeptical about the assessment, given that there were no archives showing a towering tsunami ever striking the area.

 

But the employee told the court, “Members of the group reached a consensus that we should incorporate the long-term assessment” in devising countermeasures.

 

The group asked a TEPCO subsidiary to conduct a study on the maximum height of a tsunami on the basis of the assessment.

 

The subsidiary in March 2008 informed the group that a tsunami of “a maximum 15.7 meters” could hit the Fukushima plant.

 

The group reported that number to Muto in June that year.

 

Based on Muto’s instructions, the group studied procedures on obtaining a permit to build a seawall to protect the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, according to the employee.

But in July, Muto, without giving an explanation, told the group at a meeting that TEPCO will not adopt the 15.7-meter estimate, the employee said.

 

He said Muto’s decision stunned group members who had believed the company was moving to reinforce the plant.

 

The tsunami that caused the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant reached 15.5 meters.

 

But Muto and the two others on trial have pleaded not guilty, arguing that the 15.7-meter prediction was “nothing more than one estimate.”

 

Why the TEPCO management dropped the tsunami prediction will be the focus of future hearings.

 

Prosecutors had initially declined to press charges against the three former executives, citing insufficient evidence. However, a committee for the inquest of prosecution twice concluded that the three should be indicted.

 

Their trial began in June last year. Lawyers are acting as prosecutors in the case.

 

(This story was compiled from reports by Mikiharu Sugiura, Takuya Kitazawa and Senior Staff Writer Eisuke Sasaki.)

 

 

April 11, 2018

 

 

TEPCO staffer testifies execs put off tsunami measures at Fukushima plant

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180411/p2a/00m/0na/018000c

 

TOKYO -- A Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) employee testified in court here on April 10 that company executives decided to postpone tsunami prevention measures at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant despite an assessment warning that a massive wave could hit the power station.

Three former TEPCO executives including former Vice President Sakae Muto, 67, are on trial for professional negligence causing death and injury over the Fukushima nuclear crisis triggered by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami. The TEPCO employee's statements at the trial's fifth hearing were in line with the arguments of the court-appointed attorney acting for the prosecution.

 

Since 2007, the male employee had been part of an internal assessment group tasked with estimating the maximum height of tsunami which could strike the Fukushima No. 1 plant.

The group commissioned a TEPCO-affiliated company to estimate the size of potential tsunami, based on a long-term assessment made by the government's Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion that a massive wave could be generated by a quake in the Japan Trench, including off Fukushima Prefecture. In 2008, the TEPCO subsidiary reported that tsunami as tall as 15.7 meters could hit the plant.

 

In the trial, the employee stated, "I thought that TEPCO should take the assessment into consideration in taking (earthquake and tsunami) countermeasures, as the assessment was supported by prominent seismologists." He said he was so confident that the utility would take action that he emailed another working group at the company, "There will definitely be major renovations at the Fukushima No. 1 and other plants."

 

When the employee reported the assessment result to Muto, the then vice president gave him instructions that could be interpreted as an order to prepare to build a levee. However, the employee testified that Muto later shifted policy and called for an investigation into whether the long-term tsunami risk assessment is correct rather than taking tsunami countermeasures.

"I thought they (TEPCO) would consider taking tsunami prevention measures, but they changed policy unexpectedly and I lost heart," the employee told the court.

 

Along with Muto, former TEPCO President Tsunehisa Katsumata and Vice President Ichiro Takekuro were slapped with mandatory indictments in February 2016 after a decision by the Tokyo No. 5 Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution. Since the trial's first public hearing, the court-appointed lawyers for the prosecution have claimed that the executives put off tsunami countermeasures even though TEPCO staff tasked with estimating the maximum height of tsunami that could strike the Fukushima plant endeavored to address the threat. The defendants have argued that they did not put off the countermeasures.

 

(Japanese original by Ebo Ishiyama, City News Department, and Ei Okada, Science & Environment News Department)

 

 

 

 

Partager cet article
Repost0
Pour être informé des derniers articles, inscrivez vous :
Commenter cet article