Japan Press Weekly

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2013 March 6 - 12 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Fukushima nuclear accident is far from under control: Shii

Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on March 9 said that the Fukushima nuclear accident is “far from being brought under control” after his first tour to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

On that day, the JCP’s inspection team led by Shii first visited the plant’s emergency response center, a stronghold for recovery work of the crippled reactors, and then took a bus to tour within the plant.

The JCP members got off the bus in front of contaminated water storage tanks and received the following explanation: a 1,000-ton tank will be filled with contaminated water in two days and a half; the total amount of the stored water is 270,000 tons; and the plant will have no more space to hold additional tanks in two years.

When the JCP members went up to the rooftop of the plant’s reactor 4, a radiation counter installed there detected 300 μSv/h. Radiation levels at reactors 1, 2, and 3 are too high for anyone to enter. When they went through the area near reactor 3 by bus, they were told that the radiation level measured there was more than 1,000 μSv/h.

After the inspection tour, Shii told reporters, “I strongly felt that the work to bring the accident under control and decommission the reactors is a huge task that the national government should exert every effort into for the recovery of Fukushima.”

Pointing out that the issue of contaminated water is very serious, Shii stressed that it “has to be solved by gathering together scientific expertise from all quarters.”

The JCP chair criticized the Abe Cabinet for trying to promote reactivation of nuclear power plants by proclaiming “new safety standards” and said that the accident site clearly shows that it is out of the question to restart offline nuclear reactors.