Fukushima Nuclear disaster task force kept no records of meetings
It has been revealed that the government’s nuclear disaster taskforce did not keep any records of its meetings after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident.
It made important decisions, including the designation of evacuation areas, basic policies on decontamination and restrictions on the shipment of agricultural produce.
The public records management act requires minutes of important meetings to be kept, so the government may achieve accountability and the people may verify the process by which decisions are made.
The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, which has served as the secretariat for the task force launched on March 11, said it kept no minutes of the meetings, which also decided on the banning of foodstuffs from the area.
“Yes, it is true,” said an agency spokesma
The Cabinet Office, in charge of keeping all public records, said it has told the agency to study what it can do to create a written record of the decision-making processes.
“In the case of emergencies, it is legally permissible to create documents after the event. We have asked the safety agency to consider what can be done,” said a Cabinet Office official.
“We need to know about the decision-making process and how information was processed,” he said.
"It is inconceivable that there were no records kept. It may have been difficult to keep official logs during the extreme confusion after the crisis, but they could have taken simple memos," said Kenji Sumita, an emeritus professor at Osaka University who specialises in nuclear engineering. "Perhaps there were some goings-on that the participants did not feel comfortable being made public."
"Perhaps there were some goings on that the participants did not feel comfortable being made public," he said.
A government task force was set up by then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan to deal with the nuclear disaster. Its failure to keep records emerged after public broadcaster NHK sought details of its discussions.
NHK said it found only one-page logs that listed the agenda items discussed at each meeting.
Trade Minister Edano, who was the top government spokesman when the Fukushima disaster struck and now holds the energy portfolio, apologized for the lapse and said officials would try to cobble together a record of the meetings.
The admission, and apology, by Trade Minister Yukio Edano comes in the face of widespread debate over the government's response to the Fukushima nuclear crisis triggered by a massive earthquake and tsunami last March.
"It is truly regrettable that records of the task force's meetings were not consistently kept," he told reporters.
"Given the social impact of the disaster and public interest towards it, the records should have been compiled promptly."
A lack of preparation and poor communication at top levels after the disaster struck were among the failures that turned the Fukushima accident into the worst atomic crisis in 25 years, one investigation panel formed by government said in an interim report last month.
Tokyo wants an international seal of approval for the energy-hungry country's nuclear industry to bolster its faltering efforts at reassuring the public it is safe to resume atomic operations.
The vast majority of Japan's 54 commercial nuclear reactors are offline because popular opposition is preventing their being restarted in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
The disaster, triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, contaminated the environment and forced tens of thousands of residents around the Fukushima nuclear site, in northeast Japan, to evacuate their homes.
Many still do not know if or when they will be able to return.
IAEA officials said they expect to achieve improvements in safety protocols for nuclear power plants not just in Japan but worldwide as a result of the Japan visit, said James Lyons, the agency's director of nuclear installations.
Kansai Electric concluded in its stress tests that Oi's No. 3 and No. 4 reactors could withstand an earthquake nearly two times more powerful than the maximum estimated earthquake and a 37-foot high tsunami.
