Very little information to make crucial decisions

June 17, 2014

Lack of information hampered government's evacuation efforts in Fukushima crisis

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201406170061 

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

As the crisis unfurled at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011, the prime minister’s office issued a series of evacuation orders in reaction to worsening developments without sufficient information and expert knowledge, according to testimony by a former top government official.

In testimony to the government’s Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations, then Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama, who was in charge of evacuating residents, detailed how government officials were forced to issue evacuation orders in a flurry. The Asahi Shimbun recently obtained a copy of his testimony.

“We only had limited information (on the developing nuclear crisis), but made decisions (to issue evacuation orders) with clear objectives for each of the decisions,” Fukuyama said in a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun.

“Whether we made the right decisions or not at the time will only be judged by history,” the Democratic Party of Japan Upper House member added.

After the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami crippled cooling systems of nuclear reactors at the plant on March 11, 2011, the prime minister’s office ordered residents living within a radius of 3 kilometers from the facility to evacuate at 9:23 p.m. that evening.

However, after the failure of a venting system to reduce the pressure in the No. 1 reactor vessel, the government issued an evacuation order for residents living within a 10-km radius at 5:44 a.m. on March 12.

A hydrogen explosion in the No. 1 reactor prompted officials to further expand the evacuation order to cover a 20-km radius from the plant at 6:25 p.m. that day.

Then amid the worsening condition of the No. 2 reactor, the government was forced to order residents living between a 20-km to 30-km radius from the plant to remain indoors at 11 a.m. on March 15.

Asked why the government officials only expanded the evacuation zones in increments, Fukuyama told committee members that it was feared that major traffic jams could ensue if an evacuation order was issued first for residents living away from the plant.

This would have made it difficult for residents living near the plant to promptly evacuate, the lawmaker said.

At the same time, Fukuyama criticized Tokyo Electric Power Co., the plant operator, for failing to provide updates from the worsening crisis, saying it was “frustrating.” He also acknowledged his lack of knowledge about the nuclear accident.

Asked why the officials did not issue an evacuation order for people living in a radius of 20 km to 30 km from the plant, Fukuyama suggested they instead were ordered to remain indoors as an emergency response, because it was estimated that it could take four to five days to evacuate all the 140,000 residents living within a 30-km radius of the plant.

On March 25, the government finally issued a voluntary evacuation order for residents living in a 20-km to 30-km radius of the plant. Fukuyama’s testimony shows that he apologized for the government's decision for forcing residents in the area to wait inside buildings for as long as 10 days.

According to a survey of evacuees conducted by The Asahi Shimbun and a Fukushima University research team led by professor Akira Imai, more than 80 percent of respondents said they believe the government’s evacuation orders were inappropriate.

Even though the government expanded evacuation zones in stages, extensive traffic congestion actually blocked evacuation efforts in many areas. The shortage of sufficient accommodation facilities also surfaced as a major problem during the evacuations.

“I cannot confidently say to what extent our evacuation orders properly reached the residents,” Fukuyama said.

(This article was compiled from reports by Tomomi Miyazaki and Kyoko Horiuchi.)