Accusation of Consecutive Nuclear Trouble

Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Ken Saito, accused Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) of its consecutive troubles of leaking radioactive materials in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. The troubles revealed insufficiency of TEPCO’s risk control in the crippled nuclear facility, which is in the process of decommissioning. It is concerned that the troubles may cause further damage on the natural products in Fukushima area.

There was an accident in the Fukushima plant on February 7th, in which radioactive water, produced in the process of cleaning of the facility for decontamination, was leaked outside the building. TEPCO measured 72,000 count per minute of radiation and admitted a possibility that the contaminated water penetrated the ground.

 

Contaminated water in the Fukushima plant keeps on increasing. It is estimated to be 90 metric tons every day. Underground water, not having completely been blocked, is flowing into the site and mixed with the water for cooling broken reactors. The facility where accident occurred was to remove cesium and strontium from the contaminated water.

 

After going through the facility, the contaminated water would further be cleaned through Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) and be stocked in the tanks. Because the tanks were getting filled and having no other space to build new tanks, TEPCO started releasing processed water into the sea last August, inviting criticisms from the world, especially China.

 

Saito called the president of TEPCO, Tomoaki Kobayakawa, to his office in METI and pointed out that the accident was caused by human error. “Not only dealing with the accident as human error, you should take it as a problem in the management of your company,” said Saito to Kobayakawa, asking necessary measures not to repeat the same trouble.

 

According to the news report, the workers, affiliated with a subcontractor of TEPCO, cleaned the decontaminating facility with bulbs of ventilator open. The information about the bulb had not shared among the workers. The accident brought by basic failure in safety check may invite fundamental skepticism for TEPCO to deal with radioactive material.

 

Another accident of leaking contaminated water happened in Fukushima plant last October. Radioactive water in ALPS was splashed on the worker while they were cleaning it. Two workers, not putting rainwear on, were exposed to the radiation and hospitalized.

 

TEPCO introduced stricter safety control and took measures to avoid such accident. However, the company repeated the same kind of mismanagement. China and Russia have been blocking Japanese sea products, since Japan started discharging processed water last summer. TEPCO has paid ¥4.1 billion to the producers who claimed the damage of the discharge.

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