17 September 2011

Nuclear watchdog criticizes TEPCO over blacked-out documents - 16th Sept 2011

The head of a government nuclear watchdog has criticized Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) for not being transparent enough, after it submitted documents earlier this month that were mostly blacked out.

"Why don't they release all the information? There are problems with TEPCO's attitude toward providing information," Hiroyuki Fukano, 54, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), told the Mainichi in an interview on Sept. 16.

The documents in question include an operation manual for responding to nuclear accidents.

"NISA has still not received the manual (in full)," Fukano said. "It is our job to investigate problems such as why the emergency condenser (for cooling the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant) didn't work properly, and the operation manual serves as a base for such investigations." Fukano indicated that NISA will request non-blacked out documents from TEPCO.

Regarding the current state of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant six months on from the start of the crisis, Fukano said, "Although conditions have stabilized, there are still large amounts of radioactive water at the site, and we can't say the situation is under control. There are still many problems to tackle." Read More

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