Japan Press Weekly

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2012 February 15 - 21 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

TEPCO actually expected tsunami that it said was unexpected

Japanese Communist Party representative Yoshii Hidekatsu at a Lower House Budget Committee meeting on February 15 criticized Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) for continuing to contradict itself by saying that the 3.11 tsunamis were “unexpected” in size although TEPCO had “expected” that scale.

TEPCO has kept evading its responsibility for the cost of radioactive decontamination and damage compensation by saying that the tsunamis were “beyond” the scope of expectation. TEPCO Chairman Katsumata Tsunehisa at the committee meeting also backed this excuse, saying that the 13-meter height of the tsunamis had caused a power loss.

However, Yoshii offered irrefutable evidence from TEPCO data on file, showing that TEPCO had “projected” the possibility of a tsunami of up to 15.7 meters in height. Yoshii asked, “You knew that that size of tsunami could occur, didn’t you?”

Katsumata in reply said that TEPCO had left tsunami projections to the Japan Society of Civil Engineers.

Yoshii said, “Nevertheless, the society’s tsunami assessment committee has some TEPCO engineers as members.”

Quoting the former Fukushima plant manager who confessed that considerable pressure had been placed on him to implement tougher cost-cutting efforts, Yoshii said, “In the end, you decided to not take tsunami countermeasures because such a tsunami ‘was improbable’ and ‘it would cost a lot’.”

Yoshii criticized TEPCO for using national tax revenues to provide compensation and carry out radioactive decontamination work as well as the government itself for providing 1.58 trillion yen in public funds to TEPCO.

Yoshii demanded that TEPCO’s large stockholders, main banks, and nuclear plant makers shoulder the burden and be held fully responsible.

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On the same day, the Fukushima accident investigation board interviewed Madarame Haruki, chair of the Nuclear Safety Commission.

Madarame admitted that certain measures had obviously been missing, such as tsunami preparedness measures in the nuclear safety guidelines.

When the United States was increasing its safety standards under the assumption of a full power loss, “I was preoccupied with making up a reason as to why Japan does not have to do so,” he confessed.