Japan's Nuclear Safety "Dangerously Weak"

October 2, 2002

Safety precautions at nuclear reactors in Japan have been flawed and dangerously weak, according to newly revealed reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The arrangements for accidents, emergency planning and safety training by Japanese power companies were condemned as inadequate by IAEA inspectors after they visited four reactors in the 1990s. Altogether they found 90 deficiencies in safety procedures.

The revelation comes as a major scandal over the cover-up of scores of cracks in Japanese reactors threatens to undermine the country's ambitious nuclear programme. Four of Japan's five major nuclear companies have now confessed to concealing cracks from the government's regulatory agency.

The IAEA does not know whether the deficiencies its inspectors found have been corrected because its relations with Japan have deteriorated since its last visit. "We have not been invited back for another mission since 1995," an IAEA spokeswoman told New Scientist.

In the midst of the emerging scandal on cracks, the agency offered on 16 September to send experts to Japan, but so far there has been no response.

Major power

Japan is the world's third largest user of nuclear power after France and the US, with a third of its electricity generated by over 50 reactors. There are also a dozen new reactors being planned.

The IAEA, the United Nations nuclear agency based in Vienna, frequently sends experts to different countries to share best practice on nuclear safety. Now, IAEA reports on visits to two reactors at Fukushima in 1992 and two reactors at Hamaoko in 1995 have been revealed by the nuclear industry newsletter, Nucleonics Week.

They list a long series of alleged safety flaws at the plants, including "weakness in emergency plan procedures", "insufficient event analysis on near-misses" and "lack of training for plant personnel on severe accident management". Evacuation plans were said to have been inadequately tested, firefighters poorly trained and there was "no formal policy concerning drug and alcohol use".

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992859