No matter who claims how well they coped with the nuclear disaster that struck Fukushima, the bottom line is that more than 100,000 have been displaced from their homes and a vast area has been left uninhabitable for decades to come. Food resources surrounding the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plan is contaminated, so the report by TEPCO claiming that it did not hide any information and did its best to cope with the 9.0 quake, doesn’t absolve itself from the responsibility of the tragedy.
TEPCO under the helm of executive vice president Masao Yamazaki conducted an in-house investigation, overseen by a third-party panel of experts, to determine if it had take all the right steps and measures to avert the nuclear reactor meltdown, given the extreme conditions imposed by the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. TEPCO has been accused of concealing information and underplaying the extent of damage. This report claims that the government’s interference in the disaster response created confusion and delays.
TEPCO still maintains that no company could have predicted or been prepared for the eventualities of such a huge earthquake. According to the details that have surfaced through other sources, the company had an idea of how vulnerable the reactors were, should a disaster of this magnitude strike. It worked closely with regulators and nuclear experts to ‘hijack nuclear policy’ and has been doing its best to avoid close scrutiny of the damaged plant. One other critical point that the report tries to clarify is did TEPCO propose abandoning the operations during the peak of the crisis? According to a testimony by former prime minister Naoto Kan, he did receive such a request, but his office overrode it. I guess this sums it up for us! So much so for sorry excuses and clarification reports.