Tokyo - Japanese police made the first arrests yesterday concerning the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. Six former executives and employees of JCO - the plant operator - have been charged with negligence resulting in death for illegally changing the safety manual to cut costs at the uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, 80 miles north-east of Tokyo, in September last year.
Lacking training and following the illegal guidelines, two men, who both died, mixed almost eight times the safe amount of uranium using stainless steel buckets rather than a machine, setting off a chain reaction that raged for almost 20 hours.
Police also plan to charge JCO and its then president, Mr Hiroharu Kitani, for breaching nuclear reactor laws.
