information about Fukushima published in English in Japanese media info publiée en anglais dans la presse japonaise
12 Juin 2014
The Asahi Shimbun has published a series of articles based on M. Yoshida's testimony after the Fukushima disaster.
Most of these articles have been posted on this blog but here are a few which had escaped my attention.
http://ajw.asahi.com/tag/Yoshida%20testimony
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201406060027
June 06, 2014
Since the government is supposed to be working for the good of the people, important information it has gathered is a valuable asset that belongs to each and every one of us.
After the nuclear catastrophe at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in 2011, a government investigative committee interviewed 772 people to try and identify what happened and why. They included Masao Yoshida, who was the manager of the stricken Fukushima plant. Yoshida died of esophageal cancer in 2013.
Since the Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations ended its short-lived probe into the disaster, the government has kept the valuable records of those interviews secret. It has not even disclosed the names of those interviewed.
Let us make this argument again: The government should immediately disclose, as much as possible, the records of testimonies about the accident.
On June 5, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, “If the government obtains agreements for disclosure (from those interviewed), it will disclose the records within necessary limits based on the stipulations of the information disclosure law.” He then set about learning about the intentions of the interviewees.
But the administration remains unwilling to disclose the testimonies by Yoshida on the grounds that he asked for nondisclosure of the records in a written statement submitted to the committee. This is by no means a convincing argument.
Yoshida was in charge of front-line operations at the crippled plant. He should have given his detailed accounts of the accident in an appropriate public forum, such as in testimony before the Diet. But he was struck down by cancer and died before he could do so.
Now, the document of his testimonies is one of the most valuable public assets. According to the document, at the outset of the interviews, a member of the government’s investigation panel informed Yoshida of the possibility that records of his statements could be made public. Yoshida answered, “I’m OK (with that).”
In a written statement he later submitted to the committee, Yoshida voiced concerns about possible lapses in memory. But facts can be clarified by checking his remarks against those of others. Yoshida also spoke candidly about his assessments of other people involved. But this would not cause any problems if proper rules for disclosing the records are established. These concerns do not provide a good justification for keeping all the records enveloped in secrecy.
The document of Yoshida’s interviews, a copy of which has been obtained by The Asahi Shimbun, shows that the inquiry panel’s analysis of the accident was not satisfactory. The panel’s final report referred to Yoshida’s comments from the viewpoint of whether Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the Fukushima plant, was considering the evacuation of all its employees from the plant. But the report ignored Yoshida’s claim that even TEPCO employees responsible for supervising workers on the front-line temporarily took refuge in the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant, located more than 10 kilometers from the No. 1 plant, in defiance of his instructions and orders.
What actually happened during the nuclear crisis? What kind of judgments did people involved make and how did they act or fail to act?
The investigation committee admitted that its probe had not even come close to revealing the whole picture of the accident and emphatically called for a continued inquiry. The government’s decision to effectively call off the investigation prematurely upset public expectations.
Many of the lawmakers in the Democratic Party of Japan who responded to the disaster as members of the Cabinet and other government offices have voiced their willingness to consent to the disclosure of the records of their own interviews.
The government should urge the interviewed witnesses to consent to the disclosure of their statements by stressing the importance of making them public. In particular, the remarks made by people who were deeply involved in responses to the nuclear crisis must be made public.
Making such remarks available to all of us would contribute greatly to the efforts for making in-depth analyses of the harrowing disaster from various viewpoints.
--The Asahi Shimbun, June 6
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/editorial/AJ201405210015
May 21, 2014
When faced with a life-threatening crisis, humans do not necessarily behave according to set rules. Some will do anything to save their skins. Without factoring in this possibility, is it ever possible to design something that is guaranteed to be safe?
We raise the issue because of a document that recently came to light. It is a record of statements made by Masao Yoshida, who was the manager of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant at the time of the March 2011 disaster. Yoshida died last July of esophageal cancer.
This valuable document covers exchanges Yoshida made when he was questioned by the government's Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations of Tokyo Electric Power Co.
The document begs a fundamental question: Is it right to entrust operations of nuclear power plants to electric power companies that are private enterprises?
According to the document, Yoshida said that on March 15, four days after the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima No. 1 plant, fears were being voiced that the plant's No. 2 reactor containment vessel was damaged or destroyed. At that most critical juncture, according to the document, about 90 percent of plant workers defied Yoshida's orders and fled to the Fukushima No. 2 plant, about 10 kilometers away, to seek temporary refuge.
Doubts have always existed about the efficacy of disaster response measures at nuclear power plants. Would any utility really order its workers to risk their lives and keep performing their duties? How many workers would the utility be able to continue to secure during an accident? At Fukushima, these questions were no longer just theoretical.
The safety of commercial nuclear power plants today can be maintained only if plant operators deal appropriately with any mishap. The more serious the situation, the more people are needed to contain the crisis. But unlike Self-Defense Forces personnel, police officers and firefighters, who are all special-status government workers, nuclear power plant operators are private-sector workers.
The 50 or so workers who stayed at the Fukushima No. 1 plant while the crisis unfolded came to be called the "Fukushima 50" and were lauded around the world for their heroic dedication. But there is no guarantee such heroism will come into play when the next nuclear crisis occurs. The document raises grave questions.
Yet, Shunichi Tanaka, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, was reportedly not even aware of the document's existence. We find it extremely hard to understand that the head of this organization, created to prevent a recurrence of nuclear crisis, was not familiar with all the details from the outset of the Fukushima disaster.
The possibility of plant workers deserting en masse during a crisis was not even raised during discussions last year on establishing new regulatory standards for nuclear power plants.
Yotaro Hatamura, an expert in the science of failures and former chairman of the government's investigation committee on the Fukushima accident, stated in the overview of the investigation report: "Whatever may happen will happen. Whatever is thought to never happen will also happen." Has nobody heeded Hatamura's warning?
The government's investigation committee interviewed 772 individuals in connection with the Fukushima disaster. There must be many valuable opinions that have yet to be made public.
TEPCO must reveal every aspect of the mass desertion, and waste no time in doing so. The utility cannot be entrusted with nuclear power plant operations so long as it refuses to face the issue head-on.
For its part, the government should disclose all investigation committee materials to the public and make every effort to ensure that people learn lessons from the Fukushima accident. In the absence of any such effort, we firmly oppose the restart of reactors that are currently off-line.
--The Asahi Shimbun, May 21
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/views/vox/AJ201405210013
May 21, 2014
A few days into the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011, foreign media began referring to the plant workers who stayed on to contain the unfolding crisis as the "Fukushima 50," even lauding their actions as a "last bastion" of heroism.
But another side of the story has recently come to light. According to a document obtained by The Asahi Shimbun, about 650 plant workers--roughly 90 percent of the total workforce--defied the plant manager's orders and fled to the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant about 10 kilometers away. This mass "desertion" may have stymied efforts to properly handle the crisis at the crippled plant.
The plant manager, Masao Yoshida who died last year, ordered everyone to temporarily evacuate from high-radiation zones but remain on the plant’s premises so that they would be able to return to their posts quickly if needed. Given the harrowing situation Yoshida himself and his assistants were forced to struggle through, perhaps those who disobeyed his orders and fled may deserve to be accused of dereliction of duty.
However, I cannot really blame those workers. It is easy to talk of putting one's life on the line, but actually doing so is an entirely different matter. This reminds me once again that nuclear power generation is a technology that forces us to imagine the worst-case scenario and make the ultimate choice between asking some people to risk their lives or letting vast expanses of the nation become an uninhabitable wasteland.
This mass desertion in defiance of Yoshida's orders remained unknown until The Asahi Shimbun reported it on May 20. If the facts are hidden and treated as if they never happened, the Fukushima crisis will never be understood in its entirety, and no real lessons can be learned from the disaster.
"The danger past and God forgotten," goes an old saying. Three years after the crisis, could it be that society is now beginning to embrace a new "myth" that propagates the idea of safe nuclear power generation by simply assuming there will never be another nuclear disaster? In ancient China, advancing troops were said to have marched to the beating of drums, while retreating troops marched to the clanging of gongs. In our country today, we hear the drums of the government, the bureaucrats and the business leaders that are set on restarting currently idle nuclear reactors. But let us not forget that the gongs of retreat from nuclear power generation are also sounding loud and clear.
--The Asahi Shimbun, May 21
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