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Inquiry Declares Fukushima Crisis a Man-Made Disaster
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of CNBC/New York Times
Posted: July 10th, 2012
http://www.cnbc.com/id/48089813
The nuclear accident at Fukushima was a preventable disaster rooted in government-industry collusion and the worst conformist conventions of Japanese culture, a parliamentary inquiry [has] concluded. The report, released by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, challenged some of the main story lines that the government and the operator of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant have put forward. Most notably, the report said the plants crucial cooling systems might have been damaged in the earthquake on March 11, 2011, not only in the ensuing tsunami. That possibility raises doubts about the safety of all the quake-prone countrys nuclear plants just as they begin to restart after a pause ordered in the wake of the Fukushima crisis. It was a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented, said Kiyoshi Kurokawa, the commissions chairman, in the reports introduction. And its effects could have been mitigated by a more effective human response. The 641-page report criticized Tepco as being too quick to dismiss earthquake damage as a cause of the fuel meltdowns at three of the plants six reactors, which overheated when the site lost power. Tepco has contended that the plant withstood the earthquake that rocked eastern Japan, instead placing blame for the disaster on what some experts have called a once in a millennium tsunami that followed.
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