Fukushima looks to ease blanket radiation checks on rice starting in 2020
Normalisation of the health risks, the Japanese government continues is denial policy.
Rice is checked for radiation in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, in October 2016.
March 3, 2018
FUKUSHIMA – Fukushima Prefecture will begin scaling back its blanket radiation checks on rice as early as 2020 amid growing signs the safety fears sparked by the March 2011 nuclear crisis are disappearing, it has been learned.
All rice will remain subject to checks for the time being in 12 municipalities where evacuation orders were issued following the triple core meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, but other areas will switch to random checks. All locally grown rice has been subject to the checks since 2012.
Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori told the prefectural assembly that checks will become random if no excessive radiation is detected for five years.
All local rice grown between 2015 and 2017 came in below the safety limit of 100 becquerels per kilogram. If the 2018 and 2019 harvests are also found to be within the standards, the checks will go random starting in 2020 in areas outside the 12 evacuated municipalities.
Some have criticized the blanket checks as too costly.
The manager of the Fukushima No. 1 plant is Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.
Displayed sign carried during a demonstration in Japan, at the end of the seventh year…
From Shuji-san:
Displayed sign carried during a demonstration in Japan, at the end of the seventh year…
“Do not forget Fukushima, but please do not come to Fukushima.”
“Do not forget Fukushima, but please do not eat anything in Fukushima.”
“When everyone comes to Fukushima for sightseeing, children of Fukushima will not escape.”
“When you eat the food of Fukushima, the children in Fukushima are eating radioactive substances. “
About Fukushima Food Contamination
From Shuji-san:
It will become increasingly severe in the future to turn your eyes off from the facts or interpret the facts with distortion.
Exports from Japan will also increase.
If we do not keep informed only to those who are willing to face facts, there will be no end to the increase and spread of damage.
I am translating this illustration into native language of various countries and sending it.
Japan undecided on what to do with 1 million tonnes of radioactive water at Fukushima plant
February 2, 2018
Key points:
The rate of contaminated water reaching the facility has slowed, but is still increasing
There are now more than 1,000 tanks of contaminated water at the site
One controversial option for dealing with the water includes decontaminating it as much as possible and then gradually releasing it into the ocean
Storage tanks for contaminated water at Fukushima nuclear plant
The water is being stored in hundreds of large and densely packed tanks at the plant.
Japanese Government officials have not figured out what to do with more than 1 million tonnes of radioactive water sitting at the site of the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Just days shy of the seventh anniversary of the nuclear disaster, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) revealed it successfully slowed the rate of contaminated water reaching the reactor facilities, but the amount was still increasing.
“A few years a go [the radioactive water was increasing by] 400 tonnes per day, but the increase per day has now gone down to around 100 tonnes per day,” said Naohiro Masuda, TEPCO’s chief decommissioning officer.
“A few years ago we had to create one new tank every two or three days but now we need to increase one new tank every seven to 10 days, so in that sense we think it is progress, to a certain degree, in the sense it is a more stabilised situation,” he said.
There are more than 1,000 tanks of contaminated water now at the site — and Government authorities have still not decided what to do with the water.
Aerial view of tanks of contaminated water at the Fukushima nuclear plant
Experts want a gradual release, but if the tanks break the water would slosh out.
Ice wall of limited effect
TEPCO revealed earlier this week that its underground frozen soil wall — what was expected to be the main defence against groundwater contamination — had only had a limited effect.
The 1.5-kilometre-long barrier is designed to keep groundwater from flowing into reactor buildings that were damaged by the disaster.
The wall cost more than $US300 million to build and costs $US10 million to operate.
Mr Masuda said it was important to note that the combination of the company’s measures to prevent contamination meant that the situation was less volatile overall.
So while the level of contaminated water is still increasing — albeit at a slower rate — the Japanese Government is yet to agree on what to do with it.
One controversial option includes decontaminating the water as much as possible and then gradually release it into the ocean.
Experts advising the Government have urged a gradual release of the water to the nearby Pacific Ocean.
Treatment can remove all the radioactive elements except tritium, which they say is safe in small amounts.
But local fishermen have balked at the idea, fearing a devastating impact to the reputation of their produce.
Satoru Toyomoto from the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said a Government sub-committee was still considering its options.
“You may think after as many as seven years [this should be decided], but we have done our utmost and we have done all possible things and we have finally come to a stage where we can consider this,” he said.
“After the accident occurred [in 2011] it was like a field hospital on a battlefield — but finally we have reached a situation where we can calmly think about the long-term future.
“A taskforce two years ago considered various options including geological disposal, vaporisation, burial underground, hydrogen release or release into the sea.
“Of those five options, we are trying to make a comprehensive assessment looking at options, but also reputational measures.”
TEPCO defends Fukushima ‘ice wall,’ but it is still too porous
Rows of tanks holding contaminated groundwater are seen at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in February.
The “frozen soil wall” erected around the crippled reactor buildings at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant at huge taxpayer expense appears limited in keeping groundwater from flowing in.
Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, said March 1 that 95 tons of radioactive water has been reduced a day on average between December and early February because of the underground barrier.
“Contaminated groundwater was cut in half due to the wall,” a TEPCO official said.
TEPCO estimated that the volume of polluted groundwater would have amounted to about 189 tons if the ice wall had not been in place during that period.
The utility also said the amount of polluted groundwater was reduced by about 400 tons a day now due to combined measures, such as the wall and wells pumping up water, compared with before such measures were taken.
But Toyoshi Fuketa, chairman of the Nuclear Regulation Authority, has insisted that the wells, not the wall, are the “key” to controlling the groundwater, voicing skepticism about the role of the ice wall.
The utility is proceeding with work to reinforce the wells.
The 34.5 billion yen ($322 million) frozen soil wall project began in 2014 to lay out the 1,500-meter-long underground wall around the No. 1-4 reactor buildings.
A large number of pipes were inserted to a depth of 30 meters to circulate liquid with a temperature of minus 30 degrees through them to freeze the surrounding soil.
It was designed to prevent groundwater from flowing into the plant and mixing with highly radioactive water in the basements of the buildings.
TEPCO’s recent assessment of the effectiveness of the frozen soil wall came after temperatures around the structure dropped to below zero following work that began last August to freeze the remaining final section of the wall.
But experts pointed out that the utility’s assessment is based on figures only when there was little rain.
The water volume rose to 1,000 tons or so a day in late October when two typhoons struck the area.
TEPCO believes that the surge at that time is largely attributable to the downpours from the typhoons.
Heavy rain accumulated in the basement after flowing down holes in the ceilings caused by hydrogen explosions during the 2011 triple meltdown.
It costs more than 1 billion yen a year in electricity fees to keep the wall frozen.
The company plans to remove all the groundwater from the buildings by 2020 so that it can begin work to decontaminate the facilities later.
Fukushima Disaster Released Uranium, Unexpected Particles
The gate of “Difficult-to-return zone” in Fukushima on March 11, 2014
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was believed to have only resulted in the release of gases. But seven years after one of history’s few radioactive disasters, scientists have found that uranium and other solid microparticles were also released into the surrounding parts of Japan.
The particles are a fraction of the width of a human hair – which means they could be inhaled, according to the study in the journal Environmental Science Technology.
“Our research strongly suggests there is a need for further detailed investigation on Fukushima fuel debris, inside, and potentially outside the nuclear exclusion zone,” said Gareth Law, one of the authors, of the University of Manchester.
The debris, which included uranium, caesium and technetium, was discovered in the nuclear exclusion zone, several kilometers from the epicenter of the disaster at the Fukushima plant.
Two locations were paddy oils, and an abandoned aquaculture center.
Uranium itself has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.
The previously acknowledged radioactive materials were cesium and iodine, both taking the form of volatile gases. Other gases were released, as well.
But the new information about particles potentially means a longer, bigger cleanup, according to the latest study, led by Satoshi Utsunomiya of Kyushu University.
“Having better knowledge of the released microparticles is also vitally important as it provides much needed data on the status of the melted nuclear fuels in the damaged reactors,” said Utsunomiya. “This will provide extremely useful information for (The Tokyo Electric Power Company’s) decommissioning strategy.”
The March 2011 Fukushima disaster was triggered by a massive 9.0-scale earthquake, then a 15-foot tsunami. The Daiichi plant lost power, which prevented normal cooling operations – and caused the meltdown of all three cores at the plant within a few days. The removal of the melted fuel – which could take decades – is not going to begin until 2022.
Eighteen thousand people were killed throughout the whole incident, and 100,000 were displaced. The disaster has widely been considered the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 meltdown at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.
Initial reports indicated that much of the contamination was contained in the aftermath of the 2011 disaster. But coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the meltdown, a report indicated that 10,000 additional cancer cases would be expected in the region of Japan that is most affected. Also in 2015, an American scientist contended that the Fukushima site was uncontrolled, and was leaking radioactive cesium and strontium in the Pacific Ocean. Last year, in advance of the sixth anniversary, the utilities charged with the cleanup announced that decommission of some of the fuel at one of the three damaged reactors had to be delayed, due to increased radiation.
Reflection in Fukushima: The Fukushima Daiichi Accident Seven Years On
#7 Years of Fukushima Greenpeace Radiation Survey in Namie and Iitate towns.
Greenpeace radiation surveys of the Fukushima Prefecture area in September 2017 showed that while some of the area has levels close to the government decontamination target (0.23 micro-sieverts per hour) there were many areas which were higher, including above 5 microsieverts per hour.
Going home after 7 years of the accident Story of Ms Kanno
February 28, 2018
Japanese government forcing Fukushima evacuees back into radioactive areas by cutting their compensation. This Greenpeace video provides one story now seven years after the triple catastrophe.
Nearly seven years after the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, mrs. Kanno returns to her evacuated home, the highly contaminated exclusion zone of Namie, Fukushima prefecture. Includes interviews with Mrs. Kanno and Greenpeace radiation specialist Jan Vande Putte.
TEPCO asked subsidiary to underestimate tsunami threat at Fukushima nuke plant: worker
Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) asked a subsidiary in 2008 to underestimate the scale of tsunami that could hit the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant before tsunami devastated the facility in March 2011, a subsidiary employee told a court.
The worker at Tokyo Electric Power Services Co. (TEPSCO) appeared as a witness at the hearing of three former TEPCO executives under indictment on charges of professional negligence resulting in death and injury at the Tokyo District Court on Feb. 28.
The man played a key role in TEPSCO’s estimate of the scale of possible tsunami, which could hit the premises of the plant, between 2007 and 2008.
Based on a long-term evaluation by the government’s Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion, the employee estimated that tsunami up to 15.7 meters high could hit the atomic power station. In its evaluation, the quake research headquarters had warned that a massive tsunami could occur off the Sanriku region including Fukushima Prefecture. The area was later devastated by a massive tsunami triggered by the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, causing the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
In his testimony, the employee told the court that he briefed TEPCO headquarters of the outcome of TEPSCO’s estimate of possible tsunami in March 2008. An employee at TEPCO headquarters subsequently asked the witness whether the estimated scale of possible tsunami could be lowered by changing the calculation method.
In response, the employee recalculated the possible tsunami based on different movements of tsunami waves he assumed, but he obtained an all but identical figure, the employee told the court hearing. He added that in the end, the prediction was not accepted as the utility’s estimate of possible tsunami hitting the power plant.
The man testified that his estimation of up to 15.7-meter-high tsunami hitting the power plant was “within the scope of his assumption because the calculation was based on the 1896 Sanriku earthquake that triggered over 30-meter-high tsunami.”
During the hearing, court-appointed lawyers, acting as prosecutors to indict the three former TEPCO executives, said that TEPCO headquarters considered measures to protect the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex from tsunami after being briefed of the outcome of TEPSCO’s tsunami estimate.
Nevertheless, the lawyers asserted that those who were on the company’s board at the time postponed drawing up tsunami countermeasures by deciding to commission the Japan Society of Civil Engineers to look into the matter, eventually opening the door to the nuclear crisis.
Public prosecutors had decided not to indict the three former TEPCO executives. However, under the Act on Committee for Inquest of Prosecution, court-appointed lawyers prosecuted them after a prosecution inquest panel comprising members selected from among the public concluded twice that the three deserved indictment.
TEPCO: Frozen soil wall effect limited
2018/03/01
Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says an underground frozen soil wall around its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has had a limited effect in reducing groundwater contamination.
The 1.5-kilometer-long barrier is designed to keep groundwater from flowing into reactor buildings that were damaged by the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdowns.
The wall was expected to be the main defense against groundwater contamination, as about 500 tons of water was being tainted daily by radioactive substances.
TEPCO officials on Thursday estimated the amount of new contaminated water to have decreased by about 95 tons a day from before the wall was built.
They said the estimate is based on 3 months of data including that from before and after the wall was almost completed last November.
TEPCO had introduced a so-called sub-drain system for pumping up water from wells dug around the buildings.
The officials estimated that the 2 measures resulted in a decrease of 380 tons of tainted groundwater a day, suggesting the wall’s effectiveness is limited and lower than that of the drain method.
The government plans to ask experts to look into whether the utility’s estimate is accurate.
Public funds worth over 300 million dollars have been used to build the wall. Its annual operating cost exceeds ten million dollars.
Thyroid cancer relapses in some Fukushima children
The 3.11 Fund for Children with Thyroid Cancer made the appeal at a news conference that a survey conducted by the fund shows that cancer returned to 9.5 percent, or 8, of 84 children diagnosed with thyroid cancer after the accident. They had to undergo second operations as a result.
2018/03/01
A private fund offering financial assistance to young people diagnosed with thyroid cancer after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident has called for a detailed follow-up survey of those who have relapsed.
The 3.11 Fund for Children with Thyroid Cancer made the appeal at a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday.
The fund’s name refers to March 11th, 2011, when a tsunami triggered by a powerful earthquake crippled a nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.
A survey conducted by the fund shows that cancer returned to 9.5 percent, or 8, of 84 children diagnosed with thyroid cancer after the accident. They had to undergo second operations as a result.
The fund says the 8 people were 6 to 15 years old at the time of the accident 7 years ago. Their cancers returned about 28 months on average after their first surgeries. One relapse occurred just a year later.
Fukushima Prefecture has been offering thyroid cancer screening for local residents who were 18 or younger at the time of the accident.
The 3.11 Fund pointed out that an expert committee advising the prefectural government has not taken up the issue of relapses among young thyroid cancer patients.
Fund director Hisako Sakiyama said that to get a clear picture of the health effects of the nuclear accident, it’s important to continue screening with particular attention on relapses.
Fukushima flounder exported for first time since nuclear disaster
March 1, 2018
A worker hefts a flounder into a box for export to Thailand in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, on Feb. 28, 2018.
SOMA, Fukushima — Known as the pride of the Joban region along the Pacific coast, flounder caught off Fukushima Prefecture were exported on Feb. 28 for the first time since the nuclear disaster seven years ago.
The shipment will make its way to Bangkok, where it will supply Japanese restaurants in the Thai capital with close to 1 ton of flounder by the end of March. On Feb. 28, the roughly 100 kilograms of ocean-caught fish were stacked into ice-filled cases at the market in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture. Each flounder weighed between 1.5 to 2 kilograms, and Soma Futaba fisheries cooperative head Kanji Tachiya, 66, said, “While the number of fish caught along the coast is still few, the fact that Fukushima fish will be tasted abroad motivates us.”
The flounder along Fukushima’s coastline have thick white flesh and excellent flavor, even fetching high prices at Tokyo’s famous Tsukiji wholesale market. Restrictions on their export were lifted in 2016, and while business will continue on a trial basis, the flounder still cost 10 to 20 percent less than those caught in other regions.
The Fukushima Prefectural Government negotiated with a trading company in Thailand that did not impose import restrictions on marine products from the region following the nuclear disaster. Levels of radioactive cesium in all of the roughly 25,000 types of marine products caught off the Fukushima coast surveyed by the prefecture have fallen below the domestic standard of 100 becquerels per kilogram since April 2015, and the aim is to increase the amount, type and destinations for exported fish in the future.
Radiation levels in Fukushima zones higher in 2017 than 2016, and still above government target despite cleanup: Greenpeace Japan
Look how the Japanese media are routinely censoring the news about the Fukushima situation.
In the first article about the Greenpeace recent report, a short article published in Australia, are clearly stated:
1. Fukushima still has radiation 100 times higher than normal.
2. Greenpeace warned all areas surveyed, including those where people have been allowed to return, had levels of radiation similar to an active nuclear facility “requiring strict controls”, despite the fact that residents had lifted restrictions on access after years of decontamination efforts.
3. “This is public land. Citizens, including children and pregnant women returning to their contaminated homes, are at risk of receiving radiation doses equivalent to one chest X-ray every week.
4. This is unacceptable and a clear violation of their human rights,” Jan Vande Putte with Greenpeace Belgium, and leader of the survey, said.
In the second article about the Greenpeace recent report, a longer article published by the Japan Times in Japan, all those clearly stated 4 points have now disappeared, vanished, having been censored and left out, or spinned down, reduced, minimized such as:
1. “radiation 100 times higher than normal” becomes ” radiation levels higher than the government-set target of 0.23 microsieverts per hour, ranging from 0.2 to 0.8 microsieverts per hour” , meaning 4 times higher than the Japanese government-set target.
This is a typical example that shows you how the Japanese media, unfree from the Japanese government heavy censorship, have been for the past 7 years lying, hiding the true facts of the ongoing yet unsettled nuclear disaster in Fukushima, to the majority of the Japanese population.
A member of Greenpeace checks radiation levels in the village of Iitate in Fukushima Prefecture last October. | GREENPEACE / VIA KYODO
March 1, 2018
Fukushima radiation still high: Greenpeace
A new report by Greenpeace says Fukushima, the sight of 2011’s nuclear accident after an earthquake, still has radiation 100 times higher than normal.
Greenpeace says towns in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, close to the disaster-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, are exposed to excessive levels of radiation.
In a report published on Thursday, Greenpeace warned all areas surveyed, including those where people have been allowed to return, had levels of radiation similar to an active nuclear facility “requiring strict controls”, despite the fact that residents had lifted restrictions on access after years of decontamination efforts.
“This is public land. Citizens, including children and pregnant women returning to their contaminated homes, are at risk of receiving radiation doses equivalent to one chest X-ray every week. This is unacceptable and a clear violation of their human rights,” Jan Vande Putte with Greenpeace Belgium, and leader of the survey, said.
Japanese authorities have said these areas are progressively returning to normality after the massive 9.1-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami which struck on March 11, 2011, triggering the nuclear disaster at Fukushima.
The survey said that in the towns of Namie and Iitate, located between 10 and 40 kilometres from the Fukushima Daiichi plant and where evacuation orders were partially lifted in March 2017, radiation levels continue to be “up to 100 times higher than the international limit for public exposure”.
Greenpeace also noted the “ineffectiveness of decontamination work” in these areas, saying there remained a “significant risk to health and safety for any returning evacuee”, adding that Tokyo’s policy of “effectively forcing people to return by ending housing and other financial support is not working”.
The Japanese government had said radiation levels in the reopened zones posed no risk to human health, noting that its data was corroborated by the country’s medical experts and organisations such as the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.
Considered the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine, the accident at Fukushima displaced tens of thousands of people, caused serious damage to the local economy.
Radiation levels in Fukushima zones higher in 2017 than 2016, and still above government target despite cleanup: Greenpeace Japan
Following the 2011 nuclear crisis, radiation levels at houses and areas nearby in a Fukushima village remain around three times higher than the government target despite cleanup work having been performed, an environmental group has said.
In some areas of the village of Iitate and the town of Namie, levels of radioactivity detected at some points among tens of thousands checked in surveys last September and October were higher than they had been the previous year, Greenpeace Japan said in a report released Thursday.
Most of the six houses surveyed in Iitate, located around 40 kilometers northwest of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 complex, logged radiation levels higher than the government-set target of 0.23 microsieverts per hour, ranging from 0.2 to 0.8 microsieverts per hour.
Some areas in the village had seen radiation levels rise from 2016, Greenpeace said. “There is a possibility (the environment) was contaminated again as radioactive materials that had accumulated in nearby forests may have moved around,” it said.
One house, located near a municipal office with slightly wooded areas nearby, marked lower radiation levels compared with the previous 2016 survey but levels at another five houses — which are near forests that have yet to be cleaned up — have remained almost the same.
The points surveyed covered areas in Iitate and Namie where evacuation orders have been lifted as well as some parts of Namie that remain designated as “difficult to return” zones following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which was triggered by the massive March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
The survey also showed that the effects of cleanup work conducted in 2011 and 2012 in the Tsushima district of Namie, located 40 km northwest of the Fukushima plant, had been limited, with one house there logging radiation levels of 5.8 microsieverts per hour at the highest readings and 1.3 microsieverts per hour on average.
The district is among areas designated as special reconstruction zones by the government. The state plans to carry out cleanup work and promote infrastructure development intensively at its expense to make such areas livable again.
New evidence of nuclear fuel releases found at Fukushima
February 28, 2018
Uranium and other radioactive materials, such as caesium and technetium, have been found in tiny particles released from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors.
“Our research strongly suggests there is a need for further detailed investigation on Fukushima fuel debris, inside, and potentially outside the nuclear exclusion zone,” said Dr Gareth Law.
Uranium and other radioactive materials, such as caesium and technetium, have been found in tiny particles released from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors.
This could mean the environmental impact from the fallout may last much longer than previously expected according to a new study by a team of international researchers, including scientists from The University of Manchester.
The team says that, for the first time, the fallout of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor fuel debris into the surrounding environment has been “explicitly revealed” by the study.
The scientists have been looking at extremely small pieces of debris, known as micro-particles, which were released into the environment during the initial disaster in 2011. The researchers discovered uranium from nuclear fuel embedded in or associated with caesium-rich micro particles that were emitted from the plant’s reactors during the meltdowns. The particles found measure just five micrometres or less; approximately 20 times smaller than the width of a human hair. The size of the particles means humans could inhale them.
The reactor debris fragments were found inside the nuclear exclusion zone, in paddy soils and at an abandoned aquaculture centre, located several kilometres from the nuclear plant.
It was previously thought that only volatile, gaseous radionuclides such as caesium and iodine were released from the damaged reactors. Now it is becoming clear that small, solid particles were also emitted, and that some of these particles contain very long-lived radionuclides; for example, uranium has a half-life of billions of years.
Dr Gareth Law, Senior Lecturer in Analytical Radiochemistry at the University of Manchester and an author on the paper, says: “Our research strongly suggests there is a need for further detailed investigation on Fukushima fuel debris, inside, and potentially outside the nuclear exclusion zone. Whilst it is extremely difficult to get samples from such an inhospitable environment, further work will enhance our understanding of the long-term behaviour of the fuel debris nano-particles and their impact.”
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is currently responsible for the clean-up and decommissioning process at the Fukushima Daiichi site and in the surrounding exclusion zone. Dr Satoshi Utsunomiya, Associate Professor at Kyushu University (Japan) led the study.
He added: “Having better knowledge of the released microparticles is also vitally important as it provides much needed data on the status of the melted nuclear fuels in the damaged reactors. This will provide extremely useful information for TEPCO’s decommissioning strategy.”
At present, chemical data on the fuel debris located within the damaged nuclear reactors is impossible to get due to the high levels of radiation. The microparticles found by the international team of researchers will provide vital clues on the decommissioning challenges that lie ahead.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Manchester University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
1. Asumi Ochiai, Junpei Imoto, Mizuki Suetake, Tatsuki Komiya, Genki Furuki, Ryohei Ikehara, Shinya Yamasaki, Gareth T. W. Law, Toshihiko Ohnuki, Bernd Grambow, Rodney C. Ewing, Satoshi Utsunomiya. Uranium Dioxides and Debris Fragments Released to the Environment with Cesium-Rich Microparticles from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Environmental Science & Technology, 2018; DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b06309
Court told ex-Tepco Execs were informed barriers could prevent tsunami flooding at Fukushima plant
Feb 28, 2018
The devastated Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is seen in this April 2011 file photo
An employee with a subsidiary of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. testified in court Wednesday that the unit reported a need to install tide barriers to prevent flooding from a tsunami well before the March 2011 nuclear accident at Tepco’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
According to the worker, the Tepco unit produced an estimate in March 2008 on the basis of long-term assessments released by a government organization, saying that a tsunami could occur with a height of 15.7 meters, which is above ground level at the nuclear plant site.
The estimate was presented at a meeting in June the same year that was attended by Sakae Muto, a former Tepco vice president.
The worker testified during a hearing at the Tokyo District Court that the Tepco unit estimated the tsunami height to reflect the latest information on a possible massive earthquake off Fukushima Prefecture, home to the now-devastated nuclear plant.
After finding that the nuclear plant site was vulnerable to flooding, the subsidiary reported at the meeting that installing 10-meter tide barriers would provide protection from a tsunami, the worker said.
The worker gave the testimony as a witness in the trial of three former Tepco executives, including Muto, 67, who were indicted in February 2016 for allegedly neglecting to take measures against massive tsunami. A prosecution inquest panel comprising ordinary citizens has overruled decisions by public prosecutors twice not to charge the executives. In the indictment, they were charged with professional negligence resulting in death and injury over the accident.
Lawyers appointed by the district court to act as prosecutors have said that former Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, 77, and former Vice President Ichiro Takekuro, 67, were also informed of the tsunami estimates on separate occasions. The lawyers claimed that the three former Tepco executives could have foreseen that a massive tsunami might hit the nuclear power plant.
The former executives denied the claim during the first hearing in their trial in June 2017, saying that the company would have been unable to prevent the accident even if measures were taken based on the estimate.
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