Japan Press Weekly

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2024 August 21 - 27 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

JCP Fukushima assemblymembers protest against failure of debris removal test at Fukushima Daiichi

The Japanese Communist Party members’ group of the Fukushima Prefectural Assembly on August 23 in Fukushima City protested against Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) for a failure of the test removal of melted nuclear fuel (debris) at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant due to an elementary mistake shortly after the start of the debris removal attempt.

Head of the JCP assemblymembers’ group Kamiyama Etsuko demanded that TEPCO stop leaving the debris removal work to subcontractors and to on-site workers and drastically review its management system in decommissioning operations at Fukushima Daiichi. She said that TEPCO should take full responsibility for managing all operations at the site.

Kamiyama demanded that an investigation into the cause of the mistake be conducted and that a recurrence be prevented without fail in order to restore the trust of the people of Fukushima. She also demanded an end to the ocean release of radioactive water (Alps-treated water).

About 880 tons of debris, which is a mixture of melted nuclear fuel and parts of the reactor structure, are estimated to remain in the Nos. 1, 2, and 3 reactors at the NPP. The debris removal work this time was an important experiment for analysis. The original test schedule was for 2021, but it has already been postponed three times.