# 6189
It’s been nearly a year since the disastrous earthquake & subsequent tsunamis hit northern Japan, leaving a major nuclear accident to unfold in the debris.
Only recently have we begun to hear detailed reports of just how chaotic, and apparently ineffectual, the disaster response was in the opening days and weeks of that nuclear crisis.
Yesterday, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published a 14-page analysis of Japan’s initial response to this nuclear crisis, which found (among other things) that the Japanese government, and plant owner TEPCO, were:
“. . . astonishingly unprepared, at almost all levels, for the complex nuclear disaster that started with an earthquake and a tsunami.”
This entire analysis makes for sobering reading, and is freely available on their website.
Fukushima in review: A complex disaster, a disastrous response
Yoichi Funabashi Kay Kitazawa
Abstract
On March 11, 2011, an earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The emerging crisis at the plant was complex, and, to make matters worse, it was exacerbated by communication gaps between the government and the nuclear industry.
An independent investigation panel, established by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, reviewed how the government, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), and other relevant actors responded.
In this article, the panel’s program director writes about their findings and how these players were thoroughly unprepared on almost every level for the cascading nuclear disaster.
This lack of preparation was caused, in part, by a public myth of “absolute safety” that nuclear power proponents had nurtured over decades and was aggravated by dysfunction within and between government agencies and Tepco, particularly in regard to political leadership and crisis management.
The investigation also found that the tsunami that began the nuclear disaster could and should have been anticipated and that ambiguity about the roles of public and private institutions in such a crisis was a factor in the poor response at Fukushima.
