THE WORLD’S top nuclear watchdog said yesterday that the operator of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant had underestimated the risks of tsunamis and warned that other nuclear complexes are unprepared for a similar catastrophe.
Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said regulators around the world should learn from the accident – the world’s worst since Chernobyl, which was triggered by the huge earthquake on March 11th.
But the inspectors said Japan’s response to the crisis otherwise was “exemplary,” pointing to the orderly evacuation of over 70,000 people from the nuclear disaster zone and the “bravery and determination” of the Fukushima plant’s workers.
“We have been tremendously impressed by the response of the Japanese people, the workers on the site and the organisations of the site to these tragic events,” team leader Mike Weightman said yesterday.
The agency’s preliminary report by a team of inspectors from 12 countries advised plant operators to reassess the risks of natural disasters. The report was handed to Japan’s so-called nuclear tsar, Goshi Hosono, ahead of its formal presentation to a government-level conference on nuclear safety in Vienna later this month.
Japan has come under heavy fire for ignoring scientific warnings about the dangers of natural disasters to its 54 reactors. Fukushima’s cooling systems were destroyed by the magnitude 9.0 quake, and its back-up generators were overwhelmed by the 14-15 metre tsunami that followed – over twice what it was designed to withstand.
Over 70,000 people have been evacuated since the Fukushima crisis began and many thousands have left voluntarily. The nuclear complex, which suffered a triple meltdown, is still spewing radiation nearly three months later.
Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power has presented a road map for bringing it safely to cold shutdown by January next year but many experts believe that may be too optimistic.
Several other plants are thought to be vulnerable. Last month Prime Minister Naoto Kan asked for the temporary shutdown of the Hamaoka complex, which sits on a lattice of major seismic faults.
Mr Kan is this week fighting to keep his job amid criticism of his leadership during the crisis. Members of his own Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), including party heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa, joined the opposition yesterday in submitting a no-confidence vote to the Diet.
If the prime minister loses the vote on Thursday, he and his entire cabinet will have to resign en masse or call a general election, plunging the country into another round of political turmoil as it struggles to recover from the March 11th tragedy. Mr Kan took power a year ago.
His government is under pressure to launch a full independent enquiry into what happened at Fukushima.