organization:nuclear and industrial safety agency

NISA on apology tour for mishandling U.S. radiation data - AJW by The Asahi Shimbun
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201206290047

Government officials on June 28 apologized to municipalities around the crippled #Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant for failing to release U.S. data that could have prevented thousands from fleeing toward high-radiation areas.
(...) The Japanese government had up-to-date radiation measurements provided by the U.S. government, including a map that showed high levels of radiation moving northwest of the stricken nuclear plant.
But the information was not released, and residents, unaware of dangers they faced, fled in the direction of those high-radiation areas.
(...) The U.S. radiation information has now been lost or discarded at NISA’s emergency response center,

#nucléaire #japon

Fukushima’s tsunami plan was a single page - Japan Earthquake - Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/news/japan_earthquake/index.html?story=/news/feature/2011/05/27/as_japan_earthquake_tsunami_risk

Japanese nuclear regulators trusted that the reactors at Fukushima Dai-ichi were safe from the worst waves an earthquake could muster based on a single-page memo from the plant operator nearly a decade ago.

#Japon #nucléaire #incurie

Nuclear plant workers suffer internal radiation exposure after visiting Fukushima - The Mainichi Daily News
http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110521p2a00m0na021000c.html

Nobuaki Terasaka, head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told the House of Representatives Budget Committee on May 16 that there were a total of 4,956 cases of workers suffering from internal exposure to radiation at nuclear power plants in the country excluding the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, and 4,766 of them involved workers originally from Fukushima who had visited the prefecture after the nuclear crisis. Terasaka revealed the data in his response to a question from Mito Kakizawa, a lawmaker from Your Party.

#nucléaire #Fukushima

Fresh Tales of Chaos Emerge From Early in Nuclear Crisis - WSJ.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704322804576302553455643510.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant deteriorated in the crucial first 24 hours far more rapidly than previously understood, a Wall Street Journal reconstruction of the disaster shows.

So helpless were the plant’s engineers that, as dusk fell after Japan’s devastating March 11 quake and tsunami, they were forced to scavenge flashlights from nearby homes. They pulled batteries from cars not washed away by the tsunami in a desperate effort to revive reactor gauges that weren’t working properly. The plant’s complete power loss contributed to a failure of relief vents on a dangerously overheating reactor, forcing workers to open valves by hand.

And in a significant miscalculation: At first, engineers weren’t aware that the plant’s emergency batteries were barely working, the investigation found—giving them a false impression that they had more time to make repairs. As a result, nuclear fuel began melting down hours earlier than previously assumed. This week Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, confirmed that one of the plant’s six reactors suffered a substantial meltdown early in Day 1.

#nucléaire #japon

Bid to ’Protect Assets’ Slowed Reactor Fight - WSJ.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608504576207912642629904.html

D’après le #WSJ Tepco n’a pas voulu mettre recourir tout de suite à l’eau de mer pour refroidir ses réacteurs, afin de ne pas risquer d’endommager ses centrales.

TOKYO—Crucial efforts to tame Japan’s crippled nuclear plant were delayed by concerns over damaging valuable power assets and by initial passivity on the part of the government, people familiar with the situation said, offering new insight into the management of the crisis.

#nucléaire #japon

A disconnect between statement and actions at #Japanese #nuclear plant
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2011/03/a_disconnect_between_statement.html

Those sorts of low-key statements do not match with the actions of the government or the power company. Late this afternoon local time, authorities announced that they were enlarging the evacuation zone surrounding the plant to 20 kilometers in radius. The International Atomic Energy Agency also reports that the Japanese are readying iodine tablets for distribution to the public.